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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

HUMAN ANALYSIS — ClassiB- 
cation of Human Beings in the 
Order of Their Biological Evo- 
lution .Net $10 

HOW TO BE A CONVINCING 
TALKER,— IN PUBLIC AND 
IN PRIVATE — The Laws of 
Successful Public Speaking and 
Interesting Conversation. . . Net $ 5 

HOW TO DEVELOP A SUC- 
CESSFUL PERSONALITY — 
Capitalizing Your Strong Points 
and Minimizing Your Weak 
Ones Net $ 5 

PRACTICAL PSY- 
CHOLOGY Net $10 



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PRACTICAL 
PSYCHOLOGY 

$y ELSIE LINCOLN BENEDICT, M. A. 

Author of "HUMAN ANALYSIS," "HOW TO 
BE A CONVINCING TALKER, — IN PUBLIC 
AND IN PRIVATE," "HOW TO DEVELOP A 
SUCCESSFUL PERSONALITY." 






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j Published by J. F. ROWNY PRESS 
Los Angeles California 
1920 



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Copyright, 1920 
by 
ELSIE LINCOLN BENEDICT 
New York City 



JUN -2 1920 



©0I.A571222 



DEDICATED 

TO 

MY STUDENTS. 



PREFACE 

In every man and woman there are enor- 
mous untapped resources. Only a small per- 
centage of yours are being used. You are like 
a hundred-acre field with only ten acres under 
cultivation. 

You are letting Discouragement, Worry and 
Fear grip you and ruin your life when you 
could be happy. 

You are letting yourself get old when you 
could stay young and attractive. 

You are doing all kinds of things to your 
body that make you ill when you could be 
well and strong. 

You are timid and self-conscious when you 
could be radiant with self-confidence. 

You are a failure, financially and otherwise, 
when you could be a glorious success. 

But determination alone will not do it. 

Knowledge has always been necessary to 
the accomplishment of anything. The will to 
solve a problem is useless without the know- 
ing how. 



PREFACE 
There is a key to successful, joyous living, 
based on natural laws. This volume deals 
with these natural laws, with special reference 
to those of biology and psychology. It puts 
into graphic, vivid form the psychology of the 
great universities, and applies it in everyday 
language to the everyday problems of every- 
day people. It is the psychology of the great 
scientists made practical. 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

PREFACE v 

I. HOW TO BE WELL 11 

Health the real foundation of ail accomplishment — 
Errors common to mankind — Your body the car that 
must carry you to destination — Breathing, its physi- 
ology and psychology — Colds, their cause and cure- 
Eating, America's favorite indoor sport — Overweight 
and underweight and what they mean — Longevity 
and fat — Foods for fat people — Foods for thin peo- 
ple — Poor food combinations — Good food combina- 
tions — Constipation — Rheumatism and dentistry — 
Biliousness — Headaches — Sleeping — Insomnia — 
Relaxation — Exercise for various types — The power 
of the mind over the body — The power of the body 
over the brain — Psychology of health 

II. HOW TO STOP WORRYING 57 

Tests for determining whether you are a "worrier" — 
Man's environment in his head, not his house — The 
psychology of happiness and unhappiness — Your 
mental camera — Your own movie show — The secret 
of your memory album — Attention the keynote — 
Three kinds of troubles — Man's four great fears — 
Laws of worry — The real difference between the 
happy man and the unhappy man — Two men in 
prison — Worry a black nothingness — Entertaining 
your enemies — Twain's story for worriers — Bury 
your past and don't visit the grave — Yesterday and 
vii 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Tomorrow, the thieves between which man is cruci- 
fied — Living in the Now — Your mental powerhouse — 
Rules for overcoming worry. 

III. HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT. ... 114 

The cost of self-consciousness — Self-consciousness 
and suggestion — Two young men — The world and 
your valuation of yourself — Every man telling his 
own story — The psychology of timidity — Lovemak- 
ing and advertising— Mistakes of parents- — Children 
and self-confidence — Three laws of self-confidence — 
Munsterberg's advice — The timid man and the aggres- 
sive man — Napoleon — William James on our unde- 
veloped personal resources- — Visualization and self- 
confidence — Rules for acquiring self-confidence — 
Evolution and self-confidence — Two pictures — Self- 
confidence and other people's opinions — Air castles 
— The psychology of self-confidence at Verdun — 
Cause and cure of self-consciousness. 

IV. HOW TO STAY YOUNG 159 

Ancient and modern opinions about the prolongation 
of youth— "Fountains of Eternal Youth" — Susan B. 
Anthony, LaPlace, Gladstone, Rodin, Howells, Barr, 
Wilcox, Bernhardt, examples of the prolongation of 
youth — The causes of old age — Old age and the sub- 
conscious — Popular preparations for old age — The 
story of the bride — Clothes and old age — Old age 
and fixity of habits — Old age and conservatism — Man 
never more than two years old — Life a renewing 
process — "New cells for old" — The psychology of 
age — Youth and humor — Our consciousness of the 
passage of time — Rules for prolonging youth — Mary 
C. C. Bradford's formula — The four mental states 
producing age — The secret of vitality. 



CONTENTS 
V. HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 188 

The importance of memory — Identity and memory — 
The "picture gallery of your mind" — Social, domes- 
tic, professional and business requirements of mem- 
ory — Memory and the public speaker — What to 
remember — Memory and success — The four genera- 
tions, Desire, Interest, Attention, Memory — Self-inter- 
est and memory — Attention and its significance in 
memory — Al Jennings' story — The Jester murder 
case — Memory and court testimony — The mystery of 
the girl who remembered Greek — The psychology of 
"lost" memories — College debates and memory — 
Three laws of memory — The psychology of associa- 
tion — Memory your servant — Five rules for remem- 
bering names and faces — The treasure vault of mem- 
ory and its lost combination. 

VI. HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 235 

Will power and its value — Not more will power but 
more use of what you have — The two great classes 
of wills — The eight subdivisions — The inactive will 
and its consequences — Impulsive wills — Over-active 
wills — The discouraged will — Will power and emo- 
tion — Vacillating wills — Penny-in-the-slot wills — Pur- 
posive wills and their psychology — Carrie Chapman 
Catt and the purposive will — The power of desire — 
Laws for building will power — Non-essentials and 
will power — Concentration and will power — Habit 
and will power — Twenty-five rules for building will 
power — Friends and your will — Locking your mind — 
Doing the disagreeable — A day at a time, not "for- 
everness" — What to do when you fail — What to do 
when you win — When to yield. 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
VII. HOW TO MAKE MONEY 273 

Universal desire for money vs. the universal pre- 
tenses to the contrary — Being honest about our 
money ambitions — The fallacy of poverty's "lure" — 
The rich man who would "like to be poor again" — 
Evolution and our money-needs — Money and martyrs 
— The importance of keeping abreast of your time — 
The psychology of money-making — What is an idea 
worth? — Initiative and its place in money-making — 
Capitalizing your strong points — Worry and money- 
making — Clothes and money-making — Opinions of 
rich men — The psychology of poverty — Money-mak- 
ing and its rules. 




HOW TO BE WELL 

"The man with educated bowels will eclipse 
the man with educated brains* but why not 
have both?" 

ELBERT HUBBARD. 

\ VERY human being has a right to 
a strong, healthy body. Nature 
starts ninety-nine per cent of us 
with good working capital, and we 
proceed to do what people usually do who 
inherit wealth, — squander it extravagantly 
and as a result are physical bankrupts early 
in life. 

There are two kinds of diseases, — organic 
and functional. 

Organic diseases are those like tuberculosis, 
in which there is actual destruction of tissue. 
Functional diseases are those like constipation, 
in which there is no actual loss of tissue, but 
in which some organ fails to perform its 
natural function. 

The average individual pays large doctors' 
bills each year for having some one with 
an M. D. help him get over such ailments as 
constipation, neuralgia, headaches, insomnia, 

11 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

— things that arise simply from slovenly in- 
ternal housekeeping. 

By following the sane, simple rules laid 
down in this lesson, the average man and 
woman may get and keep good health through 
a long life. 

"Be first of all a healthy animal." Your 
success and happiness depend more upon 
your health than upon anything else in the 
world. It is the real foundation upon which 
the structure of your life rests. If you are 
thoroughly well, no hardship, no sorrow, no 
misfortune is great enough to conquer you. 
If you are sick, no amount of wealth can make 
you happy. Yet the average man neglects 
this greatest of all treasures. He eats any- 
thing that tastes good; he eats large amounts 
of food at one sitting; he breathes any kind 
of air that happens to be around him, and uses, 
on an average, about one-third of his lung 
capacity. 

Man can live only four and one-half min- 
utes without air; he has been known to live 
forty days without food. Most people almost 
forget to breathe but imagine they feel them- 
selves getting weak if they miss "three 
squares" a day. 

Exercise in some form is necessary to the 
health of every individual. Motion must be 

12 



HOW TO BE WELL 
made to balance emotion if you are to stay 
well. 

But most people do not know this. The 
man who leads a sedentary life during the day 
finds sedentary amusement in the evening at 
the theatre, or by other indoor diversions. 

The average individual drinks about four 
glasses of water each 24 hours, forgetting that 
next to air water is the greatest physical neces- 
sity, since almost 70 per cent of the human 
body is water. Instead of getting a sane 
amount of sleep he goes to bed when there is 
no other place to go and takes a chance on 
feeling all right the next day. 

No one can be blamed for this state of affairs. 
As long as men and women follow lines of 
work for which they are not fittted they will 
hate their work, and the man who hates his 
work feels that his real life is lived between 
office-closing time in the evening and office- 
opening time next morning. He feels that his 
only chance for happiness is during these 
hours, and uses them accordingly. That this 
unfits him for promotion, cheats him out of 
his chances, robs him of the opportunity to 
find his right place are facts which short-sight- 
ed man fails to see until it is too late. 

Some day the knowledge of how to be well, 

13 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

get well and stay well will be disseminated by 
our government as one of the highest duties 
the people can perform for their own preserva- 
tion and efficiency. Children will be taught 
the rules for healthful eating, drinking, sleep- 
ing, exercising and breathing before their A, 
B, C's. What Johnny gets into his stomach 
will be recognized as of equal importance with 
what he is getting into his head, because the 
proper functioning of Johnnie's head is largely 
dependent upon the proper functioning of 
Johnnie's stomach. Some day we will recog- 
nize that what Johnnie drinks is as important 
as what Johnnie thinks. You can't divorce 
your body from your brain. They rise or fall 
together. Your mind manifests itself through 
your body. It is the house in which it dwells. 
Because it so vitally affects your mind, this 
first lesson in psychology, "the science of the 
human mind," must be devoted to your physi- 
cal condition. 

We all want to get somewhere. We each 
have a destination in view. Your body is the 
car that must carry you there. You are in a 
race, — the race of life, — in which competition 
is keen and getting keener every day. No sane 
driver would run on the rims or fill the gaso- 
line tank with adulterated stuff. Yet most of 

14 



HOW TO BE WELL 

the failures in this race of life are doing these 
very things. Then they wonder why they are 
outdistanced. 

In this chapter I am going to give you the 
sensible, scientific rules by which you can keep 
your car in good running order. 

BREATHING 

First of all, — breathe. Your lungs are your 
bellows and you must keep them full of air 
just as the blacksmith does when he is forging. 
It takes white heat to forge anything worth 
while. Your mind is a dull ember when your 
lungs are half empty. To breathe right all you 
have to do is to raise your chest Don't throw 
your shoulders back violently or make hard 
work of it. Simply keep your chest up. 
Nature does everything else. Because your 
breathing is the most important thing she does 
not attempt to leave it to you. She keeps your 
lungs going just as she does your heart. In 
return for her care the least you can do, and 
in fact all she asks you to do, is this : lift your 
chest and keep it lifted, so that the thorax, the 
little room inside your ribs, is not too cramped 
for expansion. 

Oxygen is necessary to the life of every 
organism, from blades of grass to human 

15 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

beings, and oxygen can only be had in fresh 
air. See to it that the air you breathe is as 
fresh as possible. I do not mean that you 
should be fanatical about this or anything else. 
Don't be freakish and try to live exclusively 
out of doors. Man has lived for so many cen- 
turies in houses he is no longer able to cope 
with the elements barehanded. But circulat- 
ing air that is not too warm is absolutely es- 
sential to physical and mental efficiency. 

This is practical psychology, so do not 
go to extremes. Do not freeze in order to have 
fresh air. Have your rooms comfortable but 
be sure of proper ventilation. Windows 
slightly open at opposite ends of your house 
or room will insure this. It is a bromide to say 
"sleep with windows wide open," but it is 
necessary to repeat it often. Your health is 
measured by the proportion of new fresh cells 
in your body to the diseased and dying cells. 
Every time you take a lungful of fresh air it 
produces twenty million new red corpuscles 
for your blood and carries away as many dead 
ones. 

While we are on the subject of breathing, 
do not overlook the fact that your breathing 
and your mental state are closely related. 
Fear, anger, jealously, worry and all negative 

16 



HOW TO BE WELL 

mental attitudes are conducive not only to the 
stooping posture but to deficient breathing. 

An inkling of this relationship was had by 
the ancients. For centuries it was believed that 
the breath was an expression of the soul. Some 
occult religions of today are founded on this. 
There is at least this to be said for them: your 
efficiency as a human machine is largely de- 
termined by your intake of air, and whether 
your breathing is or is not related to the soul, 
it certainly is the infallible indication of the 
state of your mind. Joy, happiness, exulta- 
tion are expressed by the long, deep breath, 
while their opposites instantly cause a short- 
ening of breath, choking or sobbing. 

As a mechanical aid to composure and to 
rid yourself of any negative mental attitude 
try forcing yourself to take deep breaths of 
fresh air at your open window. You will 
be surprised at the change it will make in 
your feelings in five minutes. 

Whenever you are in a tight place, when- 
ever you are facing any critical situation, 
watch your breath. Keep your lungs full, 
your chest up, your chin out, your head 
high, and see what wonders it will do for you. 

Breathing impure air powerfully and harm- 
fully affects the mind. Oxygen feeds the fires 

17 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

which burn up the poisons of the body. When 
these poisons are not properly burned up (ox- 
idized) they remain in the system to depress 
both mind and body. If you want rapid and 
healthful mind action you must have oxygen 
in your lungs. There is an old saying that deep 
breathing brings deep thinking and shallow 
breathing shallow thinking. Despondency, 
the "blues" and melancholia are characteristic 
of people who breathe only with the upper 
part of their lungs. 

Clear thinking is possible only when good 
blood is circulating at a good rate through 
the brain. Deep breathing not only purifies 
the blood but pushes it rapidly through the 
brain. 

COLDS 

The old idea that colds come from draughts 
is today largely discredited. If your body is 
in a healthy condition draughts will not give 
you colds. Outright exposure will, but mov- 
ing air is healthful, not harmful. You catch 
some of your colds from sitting in air that is 
not in motion, air laden with impurities, when 
your physical health is at a low ebb of resist- 
ance. 

Right here is perhaps the best place to tell 
you exactly what causes most of your colds. 

18 



HOW TO BE WELL 

That cause is constipation, and constipation 
comes from wrong eating. Nothing short of 
a blizzard or a drenching rain will give you a 
cold unless you are constipated. If you are 
constipated, not even a draught is necessary. 

You "catch cold" from the poison which 
your clogged-up colon sends throughout your 
body. Therefore, reverse the process when 
you get a cold and stop eating; take an enema 
to rid the system of the poison already banked 
up, and give the system a chance to clear it- 
self of debris by not putting any more food 
into it. 

Most food is thirty-five per cent poison, and 
as such, has to be disposed of. A cold is un- 
mistakable evidence that your body is already 
overloaded with poisonous materials. Give it 
a chance to "clear the decks." 

Don't let your friends tell you that you 
"must eat to keep up your strength." If you 
stopped eating at this moment, did not eat 
a mouthful for a week, and took nothing into 
your stomach but water, you would have 
plenty of strength for carrying on any ordi- 
nary work. When this is true of the man 
who works you can see how exaggerated are 
our notions about the necessity of eating. 

Any person in average health has suffi- 

19 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

cient "strength" already stored up in his 
system to carry him safely through several 
days of fasting. The man with a cold, there- 
fore, does not need more strength, hut less 
poison. Nature is a marvelous restorer. She 
disposes of unbelievable quantities of poisons 
when given the chance. But if you eat when 
you have a cold you are shoveling debris into 
the front door faster than she can carry it out 
at the rear. 

The old saying "stuff a cold and starve a 
fever" is used in the opposite sense from what 
was meant originally. The original saying 
was: "If you stuff a cold you will have to 
starve a fever," — it being well known that a 
neglected cold sometimes leads to a fever. 

LaGrippe is a cold in an exaggerated form. 
The devastating Spanish Influenza is the same 
thing carried to "the third degree" and is noth- 
ing more nor less than LaGrippe in a malig- 
nant form. It is now well known that not a 
trick of Fate, but the condition of the colon 
and intestines, largely determined whether or 
not one had the "flu." That the "flu" was 
somewhat infectious cannot be denied, but 
whether or not one "caught" it depended on 
the condition of his colon and intestines. 

The time is coming when instead of sym- 

20 



HOW TO BE WELL 

pathizing with the individual who has a cold 
we shall recognize that he is unclean internally 
and deserving of the same opprobrium as the 
man who is unclean externally. 

Sleeping out of doors, exercise in the open 
air and the avoidance of too much protein food 
are other means for avoiding colds. 
EATING 

Baseball may be the favorite outdoor, but 
eating is the favorite indoor sport of Ameri- 
cans. 

It is estimated that the average man and 
woman in this country eats twice the amount 
of food necessary for health, while many, es- 
pecially among the well-to-do, eat five times 
as much. Until people realize the danger in 
this procedure they will continue to do so be- 
cause they have the greatest urge toward it. 

All instincts are hard to combat because 
they are so deeply imbedded in the nature of 
the race. The instinct of assimilation is the 
first and foremost instinct in every living cell 
and it takes will power to restrict it when the 
means for gratifying it are at hand. 

"We dig our graves with our teeth" has 
often been said of us. Certain it is that we 
eat our way to our graves. A long life never 
comes to the glutton, in fact the "longness" of 

21 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

your life is largely dependent on the "short- 
ness" of your food supply. 

It is now an accepted theory that many of 
our diseases arise from putrefaction of protein 
in the colon. Meat carries a large amount of 
protein and contains other elements which de- 
compose quickly. 

Stop and think what begins to happen to an 
animal the instant it is killed. It begins to 
putrefy, doesn't it? All meat, therefore, is 
nothing more nor less than decaying animal 
matter and forms debris which is expunged 
from the system at great expense of energy. 

Scientists show us the proof that man 
was not originally a carnivorous (flesh-eating) 
animal. Man lived on fruits, nuts, grains and 
vegetables for the first few millions of years 
that he inhabited the globe. Proof of this is 
seen in the length of his colon and the nature 
of his teeth. 

Dogs and all flesh-eating creatures are 
created with the short colon adapted to the 
rapid expulsion of poison from the sys- 
tem. They also have the fang-like, deep- 
rooted teeth necessary for biting and hewing 
meat. The human colon is very long, thus 
necessitating much roughage in the diet. If 
much meat and other concentrated foods are 

22 



HOW TO BE WELL 

eaten, to the exclusion of fibrous foods, their 
poisons, instead of being expelled, bank up in 
the colon, causing various ailments. 

You may say you "need meat to keep up 
your strength/ ' Look at the horse. He is the 
strongest animal known. He has done more 
of the world's manual work than all men and 
all other animals combined. Yet he lives ex- 
clusively on "greens," fodder and cereals. 

Overeating is an expensive pleasure, and 
an even greater expense to your body than to 
your purse. In addition to the diseases it 
brings, it steals your energy. It saps your en- 
thusiasm. It makes you a slow mover and a 
slow thinker. It makes you lazy mentally and 
physically. Every ounce of food over the 
amount necessary to the upkeep of the body 
is a drain on the entire system. 

The "sleepiness" you feel after a heavy 
meal is only your brain's inability to "think." 
It can't "think" because when your stomach 
has that big load to dispose of it sends out 
emergency calls to other parts of the body for 
their "reserves" of blood. Your head, being 
one of the extremities, is one of the first to 
respond to the call. Your brain and stomach 
can't work at the same time. When your 

23 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

stomach is digesting meat and potatoes your 
brain won't digest ideas. 

Those who have brain work to do in the 
afternoons should eat light lunches. All pub- 
lic speakers have learned that they must eat a 
light evening meal, or preferably no food at 
all for several hours prior to appearing before 
an audience. Many a "heavy speech" is 
caused by a "heavy dinner." 

The greatest food scientist of the world was 
born in Italy in the fifteenth century. His 
name was Luigi Cornaro. At 40 his physi- 
cians gave him up to die. 

He was determined to cheat Death and 
began to study life scientifically. He discov- 
ered that the stomach was the crucial point, 
and he controlled his fate by controlling his 
stomach. He lengthened his life to 103 years, 
more than sixty happy, successful years over 
the allotted time. 

He did it by eating very sparingly. Twelve 
ounces of solid food and fourteen ounces of 
unfermented fruit juice were all he allowed 
himself per day. Every few months he went 
on a fast of several days, — gave his stomach 
a chance to rest for a new start, — and wrote 
best during these days when he had no food 
whatever. 

24 



HOW TO BE WELL 

Metchnikoff, the renowned French scientist, 
declared that 95 per cent of all human diseases 
come from putrefaction in the alimentary 
canal; that it is the "breeding ground" for most 
of our troubles. 

E. E. Rittenhouse, Commissioner of Conser- 
vation for the Equitable Life Assurance So- 
ciety, said in a speech at the Hotel Astor, New 
York: "The average American would not 
think of mixing bricks or scrap-iron or gravel 
with the fuel for his furnace, yet he feeds his 
stomach with tasty junk, much of which can- 
not be digested. This seriously overstrains his 
heart, arteries, kidneys, nerves and digestion." 

The body may well be compared to a stove 
with the stomach as the firebox. The fire cre- 
ates heat and energy, which is exactly what 
the digestion of food does for your body. 

But when you stoke your stomach with 
three or four big meals each day the same 
thing happens that happens in any stove, — 
the ashes and clinkers accumulate in the form 
of various poisons and clog the grate. 

The marvel of it all is that the human body 
stands so much neglect and abuse. Your body 
is the most intricate and wonderfully complex 
machine in the world and yet you expect it to 
run itself. 

25 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
Horace Mann said: "In college I was taught 
all about the motions of the planets as care- 
fully as though they were in clanger of flying 
off the track if I did not know how to trace 
their orbits; but nothing about the organiza- 
tion of my own body. Nothing could be more 
preposterous. I should have begun at home 
and taken the stars when it came their turn." 

It is remarkable what wrong ideas people 
have on the subject of eating. For one thing, 
few people know that the stomach is a flex- 
ible organ, somewhat like a small balloon, 
which can be distended or contracted as you 
choose. If you eat small amounts of food it 
becomes smaller and is satisfied with less. If 
you eat large amounts of food it distends until 
only large quantities satisfy it. It is like peo- 
ple,— the more you give it the more it de- 
mands. 

Here is a strange and little known fact 
about your stomach: the feeling of satis- 
faction of having "had all you want" comes 
from the fact that food is touching the walls 
of the stomach. When you have given your 
stomach a chance to become smaller, a smaller 
quantity of food gives this satisfied feeling. 
This is also the reason why you don't want as 

26 



HOW TO BE WELL 

large a meal, after decreasing the diet a few 
days, as you used to require. 

Just as wrong eating is the cause of most of 
our ills, so correct eating will create and main- 
tain bodily vigor and mental energy. By right 
eating I do not mean freak diets, — I mean just 
good, everyday foods properly combined. 

Poor food combinations: 

Milk and sugar. 

Fruits with coarse vegetables. 

Acid fruits with starches. 

Too many kinds of food at one meal. 

Milk with acid fruits. 

Good food combinations: 

Fruits with cereals and nuts. 
Nuts with all foods. 
Vegetables with cereals and nuts. 
Cereals with all other foods. 
Milk with cereals. 
Eggs with all other foods. 

The best foods to select from: 



Protein 


Fats 


Carbohydrates 


Peas 


Ripe olives 


Cereals 


Beans 


Olive oil 


Fruits 


Nuts 


Cream 


Sugar 


Eggs and milk 


Butter 


Root vegetables 


Cheese 




Coarse "fodder" 


Gluten products 




vegetables 



27 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Include some from each class in each meal. 

In weight eat one-tenth protein, one-tenth 
fats and eight-tenths carbohydrates. 

What you like is not a safe guide. Do not, 
for the sake of tickling your palate for a few 
minutes, load your stomach with harmful 
foods that cost you hours of inefficiency and 
suffering. 

Do not eat between meals. Your stomach 
needs a rest the same as all other organs. 

Never eat when you are not hungry. A 
lack of hunger is your stomach's way of tell- 
ing you that it is not ready for more food. 
Hunger is its signal that it is ready to digest 
food. 

But it is not a signal that it is ready to 
digest a ton of junk. 
OVERWEIGHT AND UNDERWEIGHT 

The statistics! of the U. S. insurance com- 
panies show that for each pound above normal 
you increase your chances of death one per 
cent above normal if disease strikes you. The 
life insurance business, of stupendous propor- 
tions financially and industrially, is based on 
just one thing, — the law of averages as applied 
to the length of your life. 

To run a winning instead of a losing busi- 
ness on this guess, the insurance companies 

28 



HOW TO BE WELL 

had to know what it was that made you 
"an unsafe risk." They have discovered 
that fat is the thing that does it. They 
have found in the statistics compiled upon 
millions of Americans, that the fat man 
dies younger than the slender man. The man 
whom you call "fat and husky" is much more 
likely to "drop off," so say the insurance com- 
panies, than the "skinny" man you sympa- 
thize with. 

This is true for several reasons, the 
first one being that an excess of fat over- 
taxes the heart. Let me put it this way for 
the sake of illustration: Your heart weighs 
less than a pound. It is the one organ that 
never takes a rest. There it is, that faithful 
little engine, thumping away every instant 
from the moment you are born till the mo- 
ment you are dead. 

If you live forty years that little engine has 
chugged away without an instant's cessation 
for forty years. If you live to be ninety it 
has chugged away for ninety years. Every 
other organ has rest periods, takes little va- 
cations at night, in relaxed moments, etc. But 
not your heart. 

Because it is such a little engine we will 
compare it to a Ford engine. Now a Ford 

29 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

engine is large enough for a Ford car, for 
Ford cars are light weight. As long as you 
do not weigh too much your engine will do 
the same for you. It will take you up the 
hills and down the dales of life at a pretty 
good gait. 

But when you take on fat you are doing to 
your heart just what a Ford owner does to his 
engine when he loads the tonneau down with 
bricks. 

A Ford engine will stand for a good 
many pounds of excess baggage just as will 
your hearty but if you load in too much, and 
attempt to carry it all the time, your car will 
not be in good running order very long. You 
will not notice it at first. Along the paved 
streets of perfect health you will travel with- 
out anything going desperately wrong. You 
do your work, you jog along fairly satisfac- 
torily, keeping up with the procession without 
apparent strain, but come to a hill such as 
Pneumonia and Diabetes and the little engine 
fails to make the grade. 

Thousands of men and women every year 
literally "kill their engines' ' just that way 
when they might so easily have had a long 
and happy life. Overweight is an infallible 
indication (except in dropsy) of overeating. 

30 



HOW TO BE WELL 

It is a false idea that you "just naturally 
fatten up after forty." You don't. Slower 
movements, less exercise, "the comforts of 
life," — including richer food and more of it 
— are what fatten the middle age man. There 
is no reason why a man should weigh more at 
fifty than at thirty. 

Following is the table of normal weights for 
men and women according to the U. S. insur- 
ance statistics as compiled March 1, 1920: 







AGE 30— MEN 






Height 




Height 




Height 




Ft. In. 


Pounds 


Ft. In. 


Pounds 


Ft. In. 


Pounds 


5 


126 


5 7 


148 


6 1 


178 


5 1 


128 


5 8 


152 


6 2 


184 


5 2 


130 


5 9 


156 


6 3 


190 


5 3 


133 


5 10 


161 


6 4 


196 


-5 4 


136 


5 11 


166 


6 5 


201 


5 5 


140 


6 


172 






5 6 


144 


AGE 30- 


-WOMEN 






Height 




Height 




Height 




Ft. In. 


Pounds 


Ft. In. 


Pounds 


Ft. In. 


Pounds 


4 8 


112 


5 2 


124 


5 8 


146 


4 9 


114 


5 3 


127 


5 9 


150 


4 10 


116 


-5 4 


131 


5 10 


154 


4 11 


118 


5 5 


134 


5 11 


157 


5 


120 


5 6 


138 


6 


161 


5 1 


122 


5 7 


142 







If you are under twenty your weight may 
be over or under without danger. If you are 
between twenty and thirty your weight may 

31 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
vary as much as five pounds under or five 
pounds over this table. This table has been 
compiled for people of thirty years and over. 

Fat is a handicap in many ways. It de- 
creases not only the quantity of life but the 
quality. 

The individual who is much overweight 
finds not only his body less active but his 
mind also. He requires more sleep and re- 
quires it oftener than the man of normal 
weight. He is not as keen, dynamic or alert 
as he would be were he rid of his excess bag- 
gage. 

Hundreds of my students have told me 
how much more alive were their minds, how 
much more happy and optimistic their mental 
condition, after reducing. Those who are 
overweight should first cut down the quantity 
of food. 

No matter how little you are eating if you 
are overweight you are overeating. When a 
fat man declares to me that he eats but one 
head of lettuce a day, I say "cut the head in 
two." 

As a matter of fact, the fat man or woman 
usually overeats. The very presence of fat 
indicates the same thing that water does when 

32 



HOW TO BE WELL 

it runs over, — that the pan is too full. Here 
are some suggestions for those who are over- 
weight : 



Avoid 
White bread 
Corn 
Rice 
Potatoes 
Olive oil 
Butter 
Cream 

Sugar in all forms 
Pastry 

Fats of all meats 
Custard 
Rice 
Desserts of all kinds 



Eat 
Lettuce 
Spinach 
Carrots 
Turnips 
Cabbage 
Onions 
Radishes 
Celery 
Tomatoes 
Green peppers 
Bran bread or 



Gluten bread 
All fruits except bananas 
and grapes 

Underweight, unless more than ten pounds, 
is not dangerous. If excessively underweight 
reverse the table. Do not eat meat more than 
once a day. This applies to all persons with- 
out regard to weight. 

CONSTIPATION 
If inclined to constipation eliminate meat. 
Eat the "fodder" vegetables such as lettuce, 
spinach, celery, tomatoes, turnips, etc., and 
plenty of raw fruits. 

Laxatives of any kind are dangerous; they 

33 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

tend to do the work belonging to the muscles 
of the colon, and these muscles, being relieved 
of their duties, ultimately become flabby and 
refuse to work. 

Those who adhere to these rules and eat 
plenty of bran bread can cure themselves per- 
manently of constipation. 

Tea and coffee are harmful in proportion to 
the amount and the strength of same. Both 
tend to cause constipation. Neither should be 
taken more than once a day and then not 
strong. 

AH stimulants are dangerous. There are 
tea drunkards as well as whiskey drunkards. 

Because water is, next to air, the most 
necessary food, you should drink at least eight 
glasses every twenty-four hours. It not only 
carries great food values of its own, but acts 
as a flush for poisons. 

Two glasses of tepid water before break- 
fast are especially recommended for those 
who are troubled by constipation. 

One complete evacuation each twenty- 
four hours is essential to health. This can 
be encouraged by reserving a few moments at 
the same hour each day without fail until the 
habit is firmly fixed. 

34 



HOW TO BE WELL 

BILIOUSNESS 

Biliousness is largely the result of constipa- 
tion or of a lazy liver. The liver is the body's 
poison destroyer, — the "garbage crematory" 
of the system, — and when it fails to do its 
work the blood is flooded with poisons. This 
in turn causes brain fag as well as body fag. 
A torpid liver always makes a torpid mind. 

To overcome a tendency to biliousness 
avoid sweets and starches and eat raw fruits. 

HEADACHES 

Most headaches come from constipation. 
The millions of microbes which inhabit the 
large intestine are often responsible for mental 
sluggishness and the "blues." When these 
poisons are too long retained in the bowel and 
especially when they are greatly increased by 
overeating or too much meat in the diet, the 
increased production and absorption of poi- 
sons will cause headaches. 

Headache remedies never cure your head- 
ache. They merely drug you into not feeling 
it. Instead of taking drugs clean out the in- 
testines and colon. 

Your mind never works effectively when 
your body is working defectively. Many a 
giant intellect has been starved and eventually 

35 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

killed by the poisons absorbed as the result of 
chronic constipation. 

RHEUMATISM 

Today it is known that rheumatism comes 
from infection somewhere in the system. In- 
fection manufactures pus. When this pus has 
no outlet it is absorbed by the body. Rheu- 
matism is the howl set up by your body when 
it has swallowed more of this poison than it 
can stand. 

The source of the trouble may be anywhere 
in the body, but it has been found that the 
teeth and the tonsils are the favorite breeding 
grounds. 

If you feel the warning twinges don't stop 
at the elimination of "red meats" or the in- 
dulgence in "frequent baths." Both measures 
are helpful, whether you are sick or well. 

Have your teeth and tonsils "X-Rayed." 
The picture will probably reveal the tell-tale 
"black spots" — tiny abscesses that have been 
sending out their poisons, sometimes for 
years. 

Dentistry is the infant among the sciences 
and has not yet devised methods for per- 
manently crowning your decayed teeth suc- 
cessfully. There is always danger that the 
pretty exterior "covers a multitude of sins." 

36 



HOW TO BE WELL 

SLEEPING 

Your nerves resemble electrical batteries. 
Nerve energy is your electricity and the cur- 
rent is on during every waking moment. 
Sleep is necessary for the recharging of these 
batteries. 

You may feel good for a long time on 
little sleep, but that is only because your 
nerves are "extending you credit." You can't 
borrow on the future indefinitely. The time 
is sure to come when they will foreclose. 

Grief, joy, excitement, fear, anxiety, — in 
fact, all emotional mental states — increase the 
voltage and run down your batteries. If you 
want health don't waste your electricity. 

From six to eight hours of sleep are essen- 
tial to the health of the average man and wo- 
man. Some require as much as nine while 
others keep well on an average of five hours 
of sleep. 

No iron-clad rule can be laid down for all- 
Much depends upon the temperament of the 
individual. The only safe rule is this: Do 
not make a practice of sleeping less than five 
hours nor more than nine out of twenty-four. 

Do not spend any more of your lifetime 
asleep than is necessary to good health but 
be sure to get all you need. This can be 

37 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

determined by noting carefully how you feel 
on the days after you have had the minimum 
of sleep. 

In deciding whether lack of sleep is harm- 
ful to you physical evidence alone is not 
sufficient. Watch your memory on the days 
following the minimum of sleep. This is the 
best test, for memory is the weakest link in 
your mental chain. You can safely estimate 
your "sleep capacity" in this manner. 
INSOMNIA 

Insomnia is not a disease but a symptom, — 
an indication that something is wrong with 
you mentally or physically. Either your body 
is sick over something or your mind is worried 
over something. 

Many people think they have not slept 
when they really have. We are not conscious 
of sleep. We are only conscious of the inter- 
vals when we are awake. 

Unless you have a watch beside your bed 
and time yourself you can never know how 
long you stayed awake in the night. The 
desire for sleep and the monotony always 
make your mind exaggerate the period of 
wakefulness. 

It has been found in hospitals and sanitaria 
where a nurse times the patient, that he sleeps 

38 



HOW TO BE WELL 

more than he thinks he has, and the time 
that seems "hours" to him was only minutes 
according to the clock. 

This is the first step toward recovery, — to 
realize that you are nine times out of ten get- 
ting more sleep than you imagine. The sec- 
ond is this rather startling fact, — which has 
been proven by scientists: It isn't the loss of 
sleep that harms you so much as the worry 
over its loss. 

A man lies awake a couple of hours in the 
night. He frets over it. He tells himself 
how badly he needs his rest and how mis- 
erable he is going to feel the next day. He 
gets all ready for a headache and when he 
awakens in the morning without one he says 
it will appear pretty soon. He looks for it, 
expects it, mentally invites it, gets all ready 
for it, concentrates on it until he actually 
feels a headache coming on. But he and 
not the sleeplessness brought it. 

Experiments have shown that one can 
lose a great deal of sleep without impairing 
the health, because when we do sleep we 
make up for the sleep lost by sleeping three 
or four times as soundly.* 

* See the experiments of Prof. Patrick of the University 
of Iowa. 

39 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

But worry is another matter. Worry at 
any time is dangerous to health. Therefore, 
when you find yourself wakeful remember the 
wakefulness won't harm you much hut worry 
will. Tell yourself that you are resting your 
body for the next day's demands. Relax every 
muscle. Relax your mind. Don't try to 
think or allow yourself to think intensely 
about anything. Let your mind drift as if 
on a slow, smooth-flowing river. When it 
fastens itself on those worries or any other 
one subject detach it and set it to floating 
again. Sleep will usually come soon but if 
it doesn't, don't be discouraged. Take ad- 
vantage of the opportunity to master your- 
self, and in a few nights you will be able 
to put yourself to sleep in this manner. 

Most insomnia comes from letting your 
nerves and mind run wild. This method for 
curing sleeplessness also cures you of the 
source of your trouble by giving mental dis- 
cipline. 

But remember, in this as in all things, your 
body and mind are interdependent. Aid your 
mind in following the above rules by avoiding 
all stimulants. You cannot key up your brain 
during the day by tea and coffee and expect it 
to subside at night. 

40 



HOW TO BE WELL 

You say you have to drink coffee to "brace 
you up." When you don't sleep you are 
merely braced up. 

Go to bed before midnight. If you are 
troubled by chronic insomnia, be in bed by 
ten o'clock. It has been proved by scientific 
experiments that the period of greatest mental 
activity is between one and four in the morn- 
ing. Many of the famous writers, including 
Herbert Spencer, reserved these hours for 
writing, declaring their clearest thinking and 
most brilliant thoughts came at that time. 

Be sure to retire before this "wide-awake" 
period comes to you. The time varies some- 
what with the individual. Watch yourself. 
Note the time when your natural "sleepy 
feeling" wears off and make a practice of 
retiring prior to it. This wave of sleepiness 
will carry you safely into unconsciousness. 
Then if you are careful to sleep in a quiet, 
well ventilated room your chances for re- 
maining asleep all night are good. 

Avoid rich or spicy foods just before retir- 
ing. 

A glass of warm water, warm milk or 
broth will tend to draw the blood away from 
your head and induce sleep. 

41 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

A tepid bath in which you lie completely 
relaxed for fifteen or twenty minutes just 
before going to bed is also excellent. Never 
take a hot or cold bath just before retiring, 
as both tend to stimulate heart action. 

Never, except under a physician's orders, re- 
sort to sleep-producing drugs. They do not 
bring sleep but only distorted unconscious- 
ness. Each dose decreases your tendency to 
natural sleep while increasing the necessity 
for a larger dose until, after using drugs, you 
find it impossible to fall asleep naturally. In 
addition to these harmful results every drug of 
this kind is poisonous in itself. The poisoning 
of the system in this way adds to your wake- 
ful tendencies and thus you go around in a 
vicious circle. Better remain awake whole 
nights than contract the "sleeping-drug" habit. 

The last warning for wakeful ones is this: 
Don't take your troubles to bed. They can- 
not be settled there. They only unsettle you. 
A well known scientist has said: "Don't just- 
ify yourself by saying you only think things 
over. Most thinking in bed is worry." 

RELAXATION 
Man spends at least one-fourth of his life- 
time asleep. Thus the one who lives to 60 

42 



HOW TO BE WELL 

years has slept 15 years and the 80-year-old 20 
years. If you want to cut down these sleeping 
years remember this: When you are not do- 
ing anything else, relax. Let your muscles 
relax. Let your mind relax. Most people 
keep themselves tense and taut as a violin 
string from morning till night. Those who 
have insomnia get it by keeping themselves 
that way after they are in bed. This keeps the 
entire system so keyed up that you are tired 
continually. 

It isn't your office work or housework that 
tires you so much as the hard work you make 
your muscles do between times. You don't 
let go. You are geared "in high" as the auto- 
ists say. Your muscles are like so many sol- 
diers. They are standing stiff and straight at 
"attention," ready for instant action. 

This is a part of the body's general plan 
of "preparedness" and is maintained by a 
rapid succession of impulses raining down 
over every muscle of your body at the rate of 
about ten reflexes per second. The contrac- 
tion is so rapid that it produces a sound some- 
what like the vibration of a guitar string. 

If you will put the tips of your fingers in 
your ears and then stiffen every muscle and 

43 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

hold it tense you can distinctly hear it. It is 
estimated that at least 40 per cent of the 
energy expended daily by us is expended in 
this way and is equal to walking 20 miles or 
lifting a 5-pound weight 500 times. This 
explains why worry and nervousness use up 
energy so rapidly. 

When you are in a state of high nervous 
tension you are burning up your strength 
at a rapid rate. Avoid this destruction of 
your strength by relaxing as completely as 
possible whenever a moment's opportunity 
presents itself. Let yourself down whenever 
there is no necessity for strain. By doing 
this you will be ready with reserve strength 
when the emergencies arrive. 

Whenever you are waiting for a car, an ele- 
vator, a clerk, waiter or any kind of service, 
remember they are doing it, not you, and take 
it as an opportunity to rest every fibre of your 
body. After the street car or elevator comes 
and you are started relax again till your desti- 
nation is reached, and give those tight muscles 
a little vacation. Do this for one day and see 
what it will do for you. 

If you are in work where you can com- 
pletely relax for five minutes each hour you 

44 



HOW TO BE WELL 

will require 25 per cent less sleep and come 
to the end of each day much less weary. The 
efficiency of the nation's biggest men is main- 
tained largely by this secret. Only the one- 
cylinder individual keeps chugging every in- 
stant. Relax ! 

EXERCISE 

Motion is essential to the healthful condi- 
tion of all animate things. Man's health de- 
pends more than we think on his muscular 
activity. But this does not necessarily mean 
strenuous exercise. 

Whether or not intense physical activity 
is essential to health depends entirely upon 
the type of the individual. A muscular man 
or woman, — that is, the type whose muscles 
are highly developed, — requires strenuous 
muscular activity ii> order to stay well. He 
should take this kind of exercise. If his work 
does not provide it he should get it outside 
his work. On the other hand, the very men- 
tal person whose chief ambition is to read a 
book, has less muscular development and re- 
quires less muscular activity. 

The safest law as to exercise is this: Three 
miles of walking in the open air every day for 

45 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
all types? with the following simple exercises 
the first thing in the morning and the last 
thing at night. They "tone up" the system, 
aid digestion and ward off constipation: 

1. Stand erect, with arms hanging at sides. 
Bend your body at the waist to the right, 
reaching down toward the floor as far as 
possible. Then bend your body to the left, 
trying to reach the floor with your left 
hand. Do this 10 times at first, gradually 
increasing to 40 times. 

2. Stand erect. Place hands on hips. Twist 
your body to the right as far as possible 
without moving your feet, then twist your 
body as far to the left as possible. This is 
one of the best liver exercises. Do 10 
times at first, increasing to 50. 

3. Lie flat on your back. Fold your arms. 
Raise both legs together to a perpendicu- 
lar position. Then lower them together 
slowly. Begin with 5 and increase to 
20 times. This is the best stomach exer- 
cise. 

4. Lie flat on your back. Fold your arms. 
Slowly raise yourself to a sitting position, 
then slowly lower yourself again to a re- 

46 



HOW TO BE WELL 

dining position. Begin with 5 times and 
increase to 20. 

5. If you have but little opportunity for walk- 
ing you can exercise your feet and ankles 
by this exercise: Stand erect with feet al- 
most touching. Slowly raise yourself up 
and down on your toes. Stand firmly. 
Start with 10 times and increase to 25. 

6. If you spend much time indoors give your- 
self the following lung exercises at an 
open window several times a day: Lift 
your chest, draw in deep breaths, filling 
the lungs to full capacity. Then slowly 
expel the air. Force the air deep down 
into the very lowest portion of your lungs, 
and expel all of it before taking the next 
breath. 

DUMB BELL EXERCISES 
(Women should use bells weighing from 
2 to 4 pounds each and men from 4 to 6 
pounds. ) 

1. Stand erect. Raise arms straight up, then 
lower straight in front of you until they 
are at right angles with the body. Raise 
and lower 5 times, increasing to 10. 

2. Raise arms straight up. Lower the right 
arm down the right side and the left arm 

47 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

down the left side until they are at right 
angles with the body. Raise and lower 
from 5 to 10 times. 

3. Stretch both arms straight out in front of 
you. Then swing back and forth horizon- 
tally. Start with 10 and increase to 20 
times. This is the best exercise for taking 
fat off the shoulder blades and for putting 
muscle on them. 

4. Hold right arm straight out at right side. 
Then swing it from back to front in a circle 
as wide as possible. Do the same with the 
left arm. This strengthens the shoulders 
and removes surplus flesh. Start with 10 
and increase to 20 times for each. 

5. Hold arms straight out in front of you. 
Then swing them as high as possible and 
as low as possible in a semi-circle. Start 
with 10 times and increase to 20. 

Outdoor exercises may be according to the 
preferences of the individual. Nature is wiser 
than we. If outdoor exercise is necessary to 
the upkeep of your particular system you will 
know about it through her wireless — your nat- 
ural inclinations. Roughly speaking, however, 
the following rules apply: 

To reduce, fat people need not resort to the 

48 



HOW TO BE WELL 

violent exercises sometimes recommended, but 
should do so by reversing the condition which 
caused overweight, i. e., by decreasing the 
quantity of food. They may participate in 
whatever outdoor recreations are preferred. 

It is impossible to separate mental and phy- 
sical reactions. When the mind does not like 
what the body is doing the maximum of phy- 
sical benefit is not possible. 

Florid people should take part in exercises 
and sports requiring short spurts of energy, 
preferably baseball, tennis and other diver- 
sions sufficiently keen to meet the require- 
ments of their enthusiastic nature. 

Those of extreme muscular development 
enjoy and thrive upon the most strenuous 
physical activities, such as racing, running, 
football, etc. 

Those men and women who are tall, angu- 
lar, "raw-boned", — who have a larger propor- 
tion of bone in the body structure than the 
average, — usually care only for such recrea- 
tions as hiking, golf and exercises calling for 
slow movements over long distances. 

The undersized, dreaming, reading individ- 
ual, who dislikes all forms of physical ex- 
ertion, can remain surprisingly well without 

49 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

exercise but even he should walk his three 
miles a day. 

The brain never works so well as when one 
is walking in the open air. Walking is a 
brain stimulant. The reason for this is that 
clear thinking is only accomplished when the 
blood is circulating fairly rapidly through the 
brain. Walking speeds up heart action. In 
other words, it does for you just what that 
cup of black coffee does, but without its pen- 
alties. 

Keeping in health is largely a matter of 
ripening the new cells and expelling the old 
ones. The body is composed of billions of 
cells and these cells are of three kinds or 
stages, — those just ripening, those in their 
prime and those that are dying. 

Keeping well is largely a matter of keeping 
this evolutionary process speeded up to the 
point where new cells are not retarded in their 
growth and dead ones not retained. 

Walking and other forms of exercise are 
valuable as a preventative of the clogging-up. 
Disease is nothing but this clogging up car- 
ried to the danger point. 

No lesson on health in these enlightened 
days can be completed without this warning: 
Your thinking vitally affects your health. 

50 



HOW TO BE WELL 

Worry, fear, anxiety, — all negative moods, — 
tear down millions of cells each instant and at 
the same time tend to so obstruct the normal 
functioning of the body that these cells, which 
have been turned into debris, are not carried 
away. 

No man of unhealthy thoughts can have 
a healthy body. If you would be sure of 
a strong body keep a sharp eye on the 
thoughts that you permit to take possession of 
your brain. 

For centuries it has been acknowledged that 
the mind influences the body. We know that 
mental disorders sometimes produce physical 
diseases. 

We know that any kind of mental distur- 
bance decreases physical vitality. An un- 
pleasant story can cause nausea. The keen- 
est hunger disappears when you receive a tele- 
gram bearing sad news. 

On the other hand the body also influences 
the mind. Lesions in the brain cause insanity 
and other mental disorders. 

Another evidence of the body's influence 
on the mind is seen in the following: When- 
ever you are physically tired your memory is 
not up to par. A cup of black coffee put into 
your stomach speeds up your mental activities. 

51 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

As a matter of fact your body and your 
brain are married and they will never be di- 
vorced. What affects one affects the other. 
Man is a unit; he is a marvelously organized 
community of some twenty-six trillions of 
cells. Each little individual cell is a distinct 
and separate being with a work and a life of 
its own. The health and happiness of each 
cell or group of cells affects all other cells com- 
posing the commonwealth of the body. The 
feelings of each group of cells, — those of the 
liver, lungs, brain and other organs, — in- 
stantly affect the feelings of all other groups. 

This is done by means of your circulatory 
system (the blood vessels) and your nervous 
system (your nerves). Your circulatory sys- 
tem — from the big trunk lines of the arteries 
down to the tiniest blood vessels — carries the 
different chemicals necessary for the upkeep 
of the body, just as a freight train carries 
many kinds of commodities to many stations. 

Your nervous system is the most perfect 
telegraph system in the world. Over its wires 
is flashed the news of every thought, sound, 
taste, touch, odor and sight that come within 
the range of your senses. 

When any of these senses encounters an 
unpleasant or destructive experience the mes- 

52 



HOW TO BE WELL 

sage of it is instantly sent out to your cir- 
culatory system and injects into the blood 
the harmful chemicals known as toxins* 

When something pleasant, beautiful or joy- 
ous happens to these senses the news flashed 
over the wires creates life-giving chemicals 
in the blood stream. 

Any part of the body thus instantaneously 
influences every other part for good or ill 
through the medium of these intricately inter- 
woven systems. 

Every cell is equipped with a tiny nerve 
of its own and keeps in constant touch with 
everything that is going on in the rest of the 
body. 

When a single group of cells can thus in- 
fluence all other groups think how much more 
powerful is the influence of the whole mind. 
The mind presides over the very citadel of the 
nervous system. It handles all mental mes- 
sages sent out by the nervous system and 
modifies the chemical freight carried by the 
circulatory system. 

The potent factor in all mental healing is 
the removal of fear from the mind. It does 
not so much matter how this is accomplished, 
— whether by faith, hope, argument, reason or 
even superstition. The primitive Hawaiian, in 

53 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

the famous play, "The Bird of Paradise/' dies 
because she believes the priest is praying her 
to death. The same superstition reversed 
would work the opposite result. 

The different types of people in our own 
country respond to different types of belief 
concerning the question of mind control. The 
religious-minded is impressed when it comes 
to him in the form of a religion; the scientific- 
minded is convinced by the respective effects 
of fear and faith on the human body; the 
everyday practical man and woman accepts 
it when he sees the different physical condi- 
tions caused in him by joy and by sorrow. 

Fear poisons the body. When this pall of 
fear is lifted a big step has been taken toward 
the cure. 

Faith may not cure the body but it does 
stop the secretion of the fear poisons. This 
gives nature a chance to go on with her mar- 
velous healing processes. When she stands 
ready to do these wonders for you don't you 
think the least you can do is to give her a 
chance? Stop shackling her with your fear 
thoughts. Give her a free rein. 

If you cannot at first believe in the healing 
power of faith at least keep a serene neutral- 
ity. Pretty soon, when you see the wonders 

54 






HOW TO BE WELL 

Nature performs in clearing up your troubles, 
you will realize that faith in her is justified. 

Maybe you do not believe in "miracles/ f 
But you witness one every time a cut on 
your finger heals up. You can't explain how 
it is done. It is something man cannot do 
for himself. But Nature does it. Her one 
idea is to keep you well. She never for a 
moment relaxes her vigil over you. 

No matter how material-minded you are 
you can't get around the fact that any force 
which turns your sickness into health deserves 
your co-operation at least. 

The body and mind are mutually interde- 
pendent. But they are not identical. Health 
lies in the proper functioning of both mind 
and body. Your body is a part of the world 
of matter and is dependent for its life upon 
the material constituents supplied to it. Its 
happiness and healthfulness depend largely 
upon the thoughts supplied to it by your mind. 

The first step is to supply the material ne- 
cessities of life, — right breathing, right eating, 
right exercising, right drinking, right sleeping. 
The second is to supply the right thoughts, — 
stimulating, optimistic, courageous thoughts, 
for thoughts vitally affect your physical condi- 
tion and the length of your life. 

55 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Since your mental attitude affects your 
physical condition avoid the subject of disease. 
Avoid talking, reading or thinking about ab- 
normal conditions of the human body. Above 
all, do not look for symptoms within yourself 
of any disease. 

My parting word to you is : Stop worrying. 
Keep your mind full of uplifting, vitalizing 
thoughts. In the next lesson I am going to 
tell you how to do this. 



56 




CHAPTER II 
HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

"Worry is the cause of more inefficiency, 
unhappiness and illness than almost any other 
affliction which modern humanity has to com- 
bat. It may well be called 'the disease of the 
— SALEEBY. 

HE rules set forth in this lesson, if 
faithfully followed, will free you of 
the shackles of despondency, fear, 
doubt and worry. They will free 
you from the bondage of failure and despair. 
If any of these rules seem too easy or too 
simple to be adequate, remind yourself that 
they are scientifically sound. The psychologi- 
cal processes behind these rules are not simple. 
They are intricate and complex, just as the 
scientific processes behind your electric lights 
are intricate and complex. But it is not neces- 
sary for you to be conversant with the ramifi- 
cations of electricity in order to light your 
home. You press a button. 

In this lesson I am going to show you 
all you need to know to be free of worry. 

57 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

I shall show you how to press the buttons 
that shall flood your life with brightness. All 
that is necessary to convince yourself is to try 
them. Press the buttons I shall point out to 
you and see for yourself. The results will 
amaze you. 

You and I are going to make a compact. I 
will keep my promise and you are going to 
keep yours. 

My promise is this: In this lesson I am 
going to tell you exactly what worry is, what 
it comes from and how to stop it. 

Your promise to me is this: That for the 
few moments on this lesson you are going to 
relax, make yourself comfortable in mind and 
body, listen carefully to what I say and forget 
for these few moments every problem that 
troubles you. You can do nothing about 
them for these few moments anyhow. You 
cannot give your attention to two subjects 
simultaneously, and for these few moments 
you are going to give your attention to me. 
After that you may pick them up again and 
do what you like with them, but for just now 
you are going to listen to me and let your 
troubles wait until our little visit is over. 

I promise that if you will do this with your 
whole heart, giving me your complete co- 

58 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

operation, relaxing completely and bidding 
your troubles wait outside the door, you will 
be able to meet and defeat these troubles 
and all your future ones. 

Are you a worrier? If you don't know, try 
this test on yourself? Are you in the habit 
of going over and over and over in your mind 
the same problem day after day without reach- 
ing a conclusion? Do you take up a fear of 
misfortune, tragedy, sorrow, hardship or pov- 
erty and think about it most of the day with- 
out deciding what to do, and start in next 
morning all over again? If you do these 
things you are a worrier. 

Worry is different from other forms of men- 
tal disturbance. When you are merely anx- 
ious or troubled over a problem you think 
about it, look on all sides of it, reach a de- 
cision and then do something about it in ac- 
cordance with that decision. 

These crucial situations come into the lives 
of all of us and must be met. All of us lose 
our loved ones by death. All of us have prob- 
lems. 

In this lesson I do not have reference to 
these inevitable and temporary crises. They 
are mental stress in an acute form and must 
be dealt with as the problem arises, according 

59 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

to the facts of that particular problem. This 
lesson has reference to a chronic mental at- 
titude. 

The worrier seldom realizes that his atti- 
tude has become chronic; he imagines each 
day's worry business a separate day's busi- 
ness, not realizing that it is merely a repetition 
of yesterday's worries and that yesterday's 
worries were a repetition of the worries of 
last week. 

No one likes to admit he is a worrier. We 
are all convinced that worrying is weakness, 
but the first step toward curing anything is to 
confess the fact. 

Maybe you have been justifying yourself 
by saying the anxiety you have been feeling 
was not worry but an attitude necessary to a 
solution of the problem. But if the anxiety 
you are feeling today is centered around the 
same thing you were anxious about last week 
or last month or last year, it is just plain 
worry. 

Worry is like a tread-mill, — you work at 
it strenuously but it doesn't get you any- 
where. You are in the same spot when you 
stop as when you started. 

The happiness of your life is nothing more 

nor less than the happiness of your thoughts. 

60 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 
You have been thinking your happiness or 
unhappiness was made by the external fur- 
niture of your existence — your possessions, 
your friends, your experiences, the events of 
your life. I am going to prove to you that 
this is not so. 

Stop and think of the various places in 
which you have lived. Some of them were 
more attractive than others. In some of them 
you had more property, more of the world's 
goods than you had in the others. But if you 
could choose one of these places and live over 
again all its experiences, you would not always 
choose the one in which your material posses- 
sions were the greatest, nor necessarily the one 
in which your physical environment was most 
gratifying. You would invariably choose to 
live over again the months or years in which 
you had the happiest thoughts, in which youi 
mind was most at peace. That is because 
your environment is no hard and fast thing. 
It is not an aggregate of physical realities. 
Your environment, insofar as it affects your 
happiness, is composed, not of the actualities, 
but of a series of mental pictures. 

Your environment is within you. It is not 
an accidental massing of outward conditions 
but the product of your own mind. 

61 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

I have had it borne in on me many times 
and in many places that it is not your actual 
surroundings but your thoughts that deter- 
mine your happiness. 

In my travels across the continent I have 
shuddered, as we went through the arid west- 
ern states, at the sight of tumble-down houses 
whose broken windows, sagging roofs and 
decayed outlines bespoke a life which to me 
would be one of unbearable wretchedness. 

But I have talked with the women who 
lived there and they have told me, while 
their ragged children clung to their ragged 
aprons, that they did not mind it. For they 
did not really live in the hovels with the 
broken windows. They lived in their thoughts, 
— the hopes of next year's crop and the fu- 
tures of their children. 

I have seen the Chinese serenely at peace in 
their hovels in San Francisco's Chinatown. I 
have seen contentment and happiness among 
the poorest immigrants in the tenements of 
New York's East Side. Your real environ- 
ment is inside your head, not your house. 

Worry is mental auto-intoxication. You 
are poisoned and poisoned by yourself. You 
veteran worriers have been imagining the 
source of your worries was in things outside 

62 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

yourselves. . This is true only indirectly. The 
direct cause is your own fixed attitude. You 
relinquish the chair to Fear instead of keeping 
it yourself. 

The events of your life affect your happi- 
ness only as they color your thoughts. It 
is not what happens to you that counts, it 
id the way you take what happens to you. 
It is never the thing itself that hurts your 
happiness, it is what you think about the 
thing. In other words, there is no happiness 
or unhappiness outside of your mental pic- 
tures. 

Every individual makes his own mental 
pictures. His mind is the moving picture cam- 
era that does it. He does it exactly as you 
take any other kinds of pictures. He turns his 
mind's eye on certain things just as you turn 
the lens of the camera on anything when you 
wish to take a picture of it. If you turn it on 
pleasant things it will make you happy. If 
you turn it on unpleasant ones it will make 
you unhappy. Whether the picture is blurred 
or distinct will depend, just as in the ordinary 
camera, on the way you focus it. 

Now, with your mental camera, this focus 
depends on attention. When you close the 
shutter of your mind's eye till it is focused 

63 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

on just one thing you are giving the con- 
centrated attention which will make it a clear, 
distinct picture. And it will be filed away 
in the album of your memory as such. If 
your attention wanders, — if the shutter is 
left open so wide that it takes in fringes of 
the surrounding territory, — the picture of the 
thing itself is less distinct.* 

The happiness of any individual begins and 
ends with these mental pictures. There is no 
happiness except the contemplation of these 
happy pictures. There is no unhappiness save 
contemplation of the unhappy pictures. Hap- 
piness comes from seeing yourself as you wish 
to be. 

Worry is the picturing of yourself in the sit- 
uation you fear. 

Let me describe to you what the happy 
person does. He has given a standing order 
to his mental photographer not to take any 
but pleasant pictures. There are just as many 
unpleasant subjects within range of his cam- 
era as there are within yours, but he ignores 
them and deliberately turns his on pleasing 
sights. 



* For further "memory" psychology see Chapter V of 
this hook on "How to Have a Good memory." 

64 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

The happy man or woman you envy be- 
cause "they never have any troubles" may 
have harder ones than yours. If he is an 
average, self-supporting person it is certain 
that he has passed through about the same 
trials, hardships and disappointments you 
have. 

Though each case is a slight variation, life 
is made up of but a few different kinds of 
experiences. Most of the other people in 
the world have passed through some phases 
of each of the main human troubles. 

There are but three kinds of troubles in the 
world: Love troubles, health troubles and 
money troubles. Four great fears blacken 
man's life. They are: 

Fear of being unloved. 

Fear of being sick. 

Fear of being poor. 

Fear of being a failure. 

The person who is worried about love turns 
his mind-camera on the very situation he 
fears: He focuses his attention on it. It is 
a "movie" camera. It makes pictures of him 
in all the sad situations he can imagine. Per- 
haps he has no mate. Like all living creat- 
tures he wants one. Instead of making of 

65 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

himself the happy individual that easily wins 
love, he devotes much of his time to "worry- 
ing" over his condition. He mentally pictures 
himself a lonely bachelor. He elongates the 
picture into the future and sees himself as a 
lonely, unloved bachelor to the end of his 
days. He thinks how sad that is going to be, 
pities himself and dwells on the difficulties of 
changing the situation. He sees himself grow- 
ing old with no one really belonging to him 
and with no one to whom he belongs, — alone 
in the world. 

He sees himself dining alone, going to the 
empty home each night through all the com- 
ing years. He sees himself craving, but 
never having, congenial companionship. He 
sees himself a white-haired old man with no 
wife to minister to him, and dying with no 
one to mourn for him. 

When he visualizes these things day after 
day he is doing what all worriers do, — sitting 
in the movie theatre of his mind and running 
the same reels over and over again. He is the 
leading figure of every picture, and he clearly 
sees himself going through the situations he 
fears. 

The duality of every man's nature is clearly 
exemplified in this, for you are fully aware 

66 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

that the real you, or ego, sits there in the 
front row of your mental theatre watching 
your other self acting on the stage. 

There is another great law of worry. Worry 
helps to bring about the thing you worry 
about. It brings it about in this way: Every 
thought tends to express itself in action. 
When you think of yourself as unloved, 
lonely, sad and tragic you act unloved, lonely, 
sad and tragic. No one loves that kind of 
person. So the worry about being unloved 
brings that very condition to pass. 

Perhaps you love someone and are afraid 
they do not love you. You "worry" about it, 
— make all the pictures for this ten-reel trag- 
edy, — and gaze upon them in the secrecy of 
your own soul. 

These pictures show you as you imagine 
you are going to look and feel when you 
have lost them; you see the humiliated per- 
son you are going to be; you see the loved 
one giving attentions to someone else; you 
can even see the expression of solicitude in 
his voice and eyes for that other somebody; 
you^picture yourself heartbroken, desolate. 

This has the same effect on you that worry 
always has: it makes you act out in your 
everyday existence the role you played in 

67 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
these mental pictures, — the jealous, heart- 
broken, desolate one. This makes you unat- 
tractive not only to others, but to the very 
person whose love you wish to have. We all 
avoid the downcast individual. We have trou- 
bles enough of our own. We like to be with 
the lighthearted folks, because they help us 
forget these troubles of ours without loading 
their own upon us.* 

The man who worries is the shunned man. 
That he needs us more than the cheerful man 
doesn't make up for the unpleasant feelings 
we get in his company. So we silence the 
twinges of conscience and stay away from 
him. 

And there is a justice in it after all. For 
the man who is a drag on his fellows has 
nothing to contribute to the world. It is the 
man who helps carry the world's burdens who 
deserves the world's rewards. 

The world owes no man anything save 
what he earns, and the chronic worrier whose 
countenance puts a damper on the cheer of 
his friends is a liability, not an asset. The 
result is that inevitably he gets treated as a 
liability is always treated. 

* See further laws on the power of visualization in Chap- 
ter III, this volume, "How to Be Self -Confident." 

68 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

Look yourself square in the eye and rea- 
lize that this is exactly what you are in the 
eyes of your friends if you are always worry- 
ing. 

Our friends are the gateways through 
which, directly or indirectly, we get every- 
thing that comes to us in life. What they 
think of us determines the way they treat us. 

If you are a worrier you have few real 
friends and they give you few chances. When 
you get but few chances to prove yourself 
you are going to get mighty little out of life. 
Thus your worry indirectly but inexorably 
brings about what you worry about. 

The man of average ability who is poor at 
40 is usually poor because he has concentrated 
his best mental energy on the fear of poverty. 
Eighty per cent of his mind was usually fas- 
tened, subconsciously, on this fear. Fear 
shackles. It crushes. It demoralizes. It 
chokes the mind and incapacitates it for think- 
ing of the ways and means that would bring 
money. When only 20 per cent of your mind 
is given to a project that project won't be 
much of a success. 

I believe this fear of poverty is the most 

devastating of these four great fears. It stares 

the thoughtful man in the face from child- 

69 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
hood to old age. Not knowing the fatal effects 
of worry he keeps his worry-movie before his 
eyes every waking moment, — a "continuous 
performance." He watches reel after reel of 
the distressing pictures, — sees himself losing 
the little he has; sees his struggle to earn 
more and the failure to get back on his feet; 
the whole story progresses step by step down- 
ward. In the "final" he always gives himself 
three alternatives, — dying in the poorhouse, 
dying alone in a garret, or, worst of all, in the 
home of his uncongenial relatives. 

Hundreds of our students have confessed 
that these are the very pictures they visualized 
for years, in their terror of "penniless old 
age. 

You want to make your imagination work 
for you from now on instead of against you. 
You want to be happy instead of unhappy. 
Then turn your mental camera on the things 
you desire instead of the things you fear. In 
other words, persistently give your ATTEN- 
TION to the contemplation of pleasant possi- 
bilities instead of unpleasant ones. 

Whenever you find that mental camera of 
yours twisting around toward the things you 
dread, readjust it till it focuses on the things 
you want to come true, Then center your 

70 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

attention on them, concentrate on them. Let 
your mind dwell on the happy scenes; picture 
yourself as doing what you want to do, get- 
ting what you want. Then you are happy 
instead of unhappy, optimistic instead of pes- 
simistic. 

Remember, the only thing that makes the 
happy man different from the unhappy one is 
that he is constantly turning the eye of his 
camera on happy possibilities. 

Habit plays a leading part here as in every- 
thing we do, and the happy man is helped by 
habit after he has faithfully turned his camera 
the right way for a while. 

You who have been in the habit of worry- 
ing will be hindered by that same law of habit 
at first, but you can break the bonds of habit 
by not attempting to break all of them at once. 

When you sense the worry feeling com- 
ing over you, — when the unhappy pictures 
arise in your mind, — don't try to abolish all 
of them at once. 

Remember, these worry pictures do not 
come all at the same instant. They are your 
enemies, but they cannot come in a mob, 
for the very simple reason that the mind can 
only give attention to one thing at a time. 
Each one comes exactly like the separate reels 

71 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

of the ordinary movie, — one at a time. You 
meet these thought-enemies singly. Because 
you are bigger than any of your thoughts, you 
can defeat each one of them as he sticks up 
his head if you want to. 

This is your movie show. You are the 
owner, proprietor, cameraman and director. 
You can stop the show any instant and turn 
on a happy picture. 

Remember, the only happiness in life is the 
happiness you get out of your mental images 
just as you make all your unhappiness by 
your unhappy mental images. 

Let us take an illustration: To be a con- 
vict in prison is considered the greatest trag- 
edy that can befall a man. This man is con- 
victed and sent to prison for 25 years. But 
we don't let him know he is in prison, a 
branded criminal. We keep these facts 
from him. We don't let them get into his 
mind. We convince him that the prison is an 
institution of honor instead of dishonor, that 
his friends are proud of him instead of 
ashamed of him. In short, that it is a dis- 
tinction to be in prison, that it is the place all 
of us want to be and all of its phases are de- 
lightful phases of existence. 

Do you think that man would be unhappy? 

72 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

Do you think he would develop the sad ex- 
pression, the desolate stoop of the shoulders, 
the cringing attitude? Do you think it would 
ruin his outlook, wreck his life? No indeed. 
He would be happy every day of the 25 years 
because his belief would be a happy one, his 
mental pictures would be pleasant ones. The 
actual events of his life would be exactly like 
those of every other convict. The effect on 
him would be exactly opposite. He would 
leave there at the end of the 25 years a proud, 
upstanding, courageous man. He would carry 
his chest up, his head high. 

It is never the fact that a man's body is 
in prison which hurts him. 

Among my acquaintances are the two 
most famous prison wardens of the United 
States, — Thomas Tynan, head of the Colorado 
State Penitentiary, and Thomas Mott Osborn, 
former warden of Sing Sing. Both of these 
men say it is surprising how quickly the con- 
vict adjusts himself to his physical surround- 
ings. 

But the thing that kills is what goes on 
in his mind, — the mental pictures of himself 
as an outcast. 

So it is with the things that actually happen 
to you. They cannot hurt you. You hurt 

73 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

yourself^ make yourself unhappy because you 
let them give rise to the wrong kind of mental 
pictures. 

Let us take an opposite case, just to con- 
vince you that it is your mental movie and not 
the facts which make the difference between 
happiness and unhappiness. 

Here is a man who is not a convict. He 
is, in fact, a highly respected and much be- 
loved citizen of his community. But by a 
series of cleverly arranged pretenses we con- 
vince him that he has been convicted of 
crime; we convince him that he is in prison. 

Now the place where we are keeping him 
is not a prison. It is a tall building of beau- 
tiful design. But he does not enjoy its beauty. 
There are flowers everywhere, birds are sing- 
ing in the nearby trees. There are no bars 
across the windows, and no lock on the gate. 
But we convince him that he cannot escape. 
He believes it. 

We allow him to do exactly as he pleases; 
we let him have family and friends with him 
precisely as before; we give him everything 
he asks for. 

Do you think he would be happy? No. 

With everything tangible that he desired he 

would still be wretched because of his imag- 

74 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

ination that he was a prisoner. His mental 
images would be unhappy ones, — made so, 
not by the things that happened to him, but 
by his interpretation of them. 

And he would leave this beautiful place at 
the end of even five years a shame-faced, 
broken man. 

When we took him outside and showed him 
how he could have escaped at any time, that 
it wasn't a prison at all, we would be doing 
for him what I want to do in this lesson for 
you — proving to him that it isn't what hap- 
pens to you that ruins your happiness; it is 
whether or not you keep your mind on pleas- 
ant or unpleasant pictures. 

If this simile of the mental pictures seems 
inadequate to you, just remember that your 
happiness, — the supreme aim of life, — is all in 
thinking, and all thinking is a series of men- 
tal pictures. 

If someone else or some force outside your- 
self made these distressing mental pictures of 
yours there might be some excuse for your 
being a "worrier." 

But you make them. You take them, de- 
velop them and then watch them unroll before 
your mind, — all because you turned your AT- 
TENTION on the wrong scenes. 

75 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

There are just as many pleasant possibil- 
ities in you as in anybody. The external 
world you live in is the same world the happy 
man lives in. The same actual stretch of hor- 
izon looms ahead of you both. But he focuses 
his attention on the agreeable and you keep 
yours on the disagreeable.* 

And right here let me give you another 
great law not only of psychology but of biol- 
ogy: Nature is against you when you are 
focusing on the unhappy scenes; she is on 
your side whenever you are trying to turn 
your mental lens on the happy ones. Why? 
Because Nature is a constructive force. In 
fact, "Nature" is the name we have given to 
the only constructive force we know, — the 
force that makes the grass grow, the flowers 
bloom, that cures the soldier's gaping wounds, 
that makes men and women love, that makes 
the millions of suns whirl throughout space. 

The worrier is doing a destructive thing and 
all nature opposes him. If he keeps trying he 
can make of himself a chronic, self -starting, 
self-supporting worrier to be sure, but if he 
can do this with Nature against him, think 
how much easier he could be a happy man. 

* For further extension of the law of mental images, see 
"The Power of Your Mind," by Elsie Lincoln Benedict. 

76 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

To prove it to yourself do this: the next 
time a worry-thought comes sneaking around 
the door of your mind, instead of flinging it 
wide open and inviting it in, go to the door 
and invite in the other guests that constantly 
hover there, — the constructive thoughts, the 
plans for your future, the things you have to 
be happy over. 

You will be surprised to see how gladly and 
gratefully they will flock in. They do so be- 
cause they are your rightful companions, the 
friends Nature intended you to have. 

God never made any creature to be un- 
happy or unsuccessful. He intended every 
living thing to be joyous, buoyant, optimistic, 
and every time we take the slightest step to- 
ward them His forces sustain us. I do not 
know how it is done. I make no pretenses to 
solving the "unknowable." I only know that 
something happens inside a man the instant 
he begins striving upward instead of down- 
ward, — a something that helps him, that 
strengthens and sustains him. 

The next time you feel "blue," gently turn 
your attention to one little happy thought and 
see what happens to you. 

The worrier does the exact opposite. When 
the happy thoughts come trooping around the 

77 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

door of his mind he ignores them. He keys 
his mind for Worry's tap, and as if that wasn't 
enough stands outside the door looking for 
her. He welcomes her with open arms, in- 
vites the hag into the best parlor and visits 
with her about all the things he is afraid of. 

The sun is shining all around him, the 
world is a good place, most of the things he 
fears are not on their way to him at all, and 
those that are coming will turn out to be bless- 
ings in disguise,- — but he sits there letting 
Worry blacken the world for him with her in- 
sidious threats. Happy thoughts linger around 
just outside, and one gets near enough to 
whisper, "Maybe it will come out all right." 

Worry is such a coward that even at that 
slight whisper she starts to crawl away. But 
he brings her back, makes her comfortable, 
and, to justify himself for entertaining her, 
says, "You see, Worry, you and I have got to 
get together and look these possibilities all 
over. To protect myself against the worst, I 
must know what the very worst could be, so 
you just go on. Tell me every awful thing 
that might happen to me. Describe the de- 
tails to me. Don't withhold anything." 

And Worry, that loathsome scandal-monger 
of the human mind, whispers back, "Well, 

78 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

here are some of the deplorable things that 
may come," — and then she goes on as long 
as you will give her your attention, picturing 
to you the gruesome tragedies that are pos- 
sible. 

You let yourself believe her. To be sure, 
you know that Worry is a liar. You recall 
that nine-tenths of the awful things she pre- 
dicted in the past never came true. You be- 
grudge the time you wasted listening to her 
before. You realize all too well if you had 
used that time to do something worth while 
you would be far ahead of where you are to- 
day You despise her for the harm she has 
done you. You have nothing but contempt 
for her. You wish she would stay away from 
you. You wish you never had to see her dis- 
gusting face again. And you don't have to, if 
you don't want to. 

But Worry is just like a human being. She 
gravitates back to the place where she is wel- 
comed, and you are so kind to her, you give 
her so much attention, she hangs around. 

She is also somewhat human in this: she 
stays away from the places where she is not 
welcomed. Only she is such a cowardly, 
cringing thing she is much more easily re- 
buffed than a human being. One lifting of 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

your chest and she vanishes. Straighten your 
shoulders, raise your head, and she is gone. 

To be sure, she doesn't go far away. She 
watches for the flash to die out of your eye, 
the droop to come hack to your shoulders, 
for she knows what that means in your men- 
tal attitude. She knows the stooped man is 
her prey. All thoughts have their physiologi- 
cal expression and one always begets the 
other. The sunken chest is the mate of Dis- 
couragement. The lifted chest is the mate of 
Courage. They are like two animals in the 
jungle : when you see one you know the other 
is not far away. So when Worry sees your 
head high she slinks farther away. Try it 
and see. 

Don't continue to labor under the delusion 
that it is hard to stop worrying. You make 
hard work of it because you go at it wrong. 

You try to slay all your enemies at once. 
You forget that the only enemies to your 
happiness are your thoughts and you cannot 
have two thoughts at once. 

All you need to do to get rid of Worry is 
to let another visitor in. 

Have you ever seen how a cringing coward 
acts when a splendid individual joins the 
group? He slips away. Worry is the worst 

80 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

coward in the world. The minute you open 
the door of your mind to the courageous 
thoughts that hover there, she wraps her rags 
about her and slinks out. You don't need to 
order her to go. Don't dignify her that much. 
Don't recognize Worry as worthy of your 
consideration. She is nothing but a black 
Nothingness created by the weak side of your 
own mind anyhow. She has no existence save 
as you create and recreate her. 

Never be afraid that the good thoughts 
aren't just outside the door. What is it that 
keeps every living creature battling hopefully 
to the last minute of life? — that sustains the 
sick, the decrepit, the defeated, and lures 
them to fight on? It is these encouraging 
thought-friends. They are always there, re- 
assuring you, whispering hope into your ear 
whenever you stop gossipping with Worry 
long enough to listen. 

In this lesson I do not ask you to tackle 
Worry and forcibly eject her. That is not 
necessary. Open the door of your mind to 
the tiniest constructive thought and before 
you can see what is happening, Worry dodges 
away. 

This is due to a psychological law and the 
law is this : thoughts are accompanied by emo- 

81 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

tional qualities or "tone." Every thought you 
have gives rise to a definite, though sometimes 
imperceptible, reaction. 

Whenever thoughts of achievement, health, 
love or prosperity cross your mind you exper- 
ience a feeling of courage, energy and stim- 
ulation. 

Whenever ideas of death, disease or failure 
flit across your mind you experience instan- 
taneously a feeling of lethargy, inertia and im- 
potence. Sad memories, remorse or fear have 
associated with them disintegrating emotional 
qualities. 

Exalted ideas, inspiring hopes have asso- 
ciated with them energizing and vitalizing 
emotional qualities. Such is the miraculous 
mechanism of the human mind. 

As we have seen, all happiness or unhap- 
piness comes from your mental pictures. 
They come because your mental pictures are 
each mated to an emotion. 

Unhappiness is the massed emotion from a 
series of unhappy pictures. Your mind- 
camera is taking pictures for you every wak- 
ing moment, and just as long as you turn it 
on unpleasant thoughts you will have un- 
happy emotions or worry. 

82 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

Worry comes from exaggerating the im- 
portance of ourselves. It is a big universe 
and what happens to you and me doesn't 
make such a lot of difference after all. Even 
to you and me it doesn't make much differ- 
ence. Think where you will be a hundred 
years from today. Think where you will be 
one year from today. A year from today you 
will say today's worries were wrong, useless, 
demoralizing. 

Knowing this is what you will say about 
them only a year hence, why not push your 
imaginary clock a year ahead and say it now? 

Give today to something constructive. Give 
it to something which you can be proud of a 
year from today. 

When you find yourself taking yourself 
and your little life too seriously, turn to that 
famous story of "Captain Stormfield's Visit to 
Heaven," which Mark Twain wrote. For fear 
you can't get it in a hurry when you need it, I 
will give you the gist of it here. 

The Captain found great difficulty in mak- 
ing clear to the angel at the gate just who he 
was. He was sure St. Peter would remember 
him as soon as he mentioned his name. He 
greeted him familiarly and announced he was 
Captain Stormfield. 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

St. Peter didn't seem to know of any such 
man. Then he explained that he came from 
San Francisco. Nobody in heaven had heard 
of San Francisco. Then he told them San 
Francisco was in California. That meant 
nothing, so he informed them that California 
was in the United States. The United States, 
he said, were in America. Nobody had ever 
heard of America. 

At last he told them he came from the 
Earth. After a long search through the ar- 
chives, someone discovered a slight reference 
to a speck, out among the billions and billions 
of stars, planets and constellations, called the 
Earth. 

The marvels of time are as wonderful as 
the marvels of space. This is a Big Show. 
Nobody knows how many billions of centuries 
it has been running, where it started or where 
it is going. 

You and I are infinitesimal atoms. If the 
worst thing that could happen to an atom 
happened to us it wouldn't be very impor- 
tant. About the only thing we can do to 
prevent being even more insignificant is to 
be as constructive as we can. To do this you 
must remove worry from your mind, for 
worry is destructive. 

84 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

If you worry about failure just remember 
that nothing will bring failure so surely or so 
quickly as worry. Your place in life today is 
the massed result of the thoughts of yester- 
day. Your life is made, to an astounding de- 
gree, by your thinking. If you would realize 
success tomorrow, think success today. 

No worrier ever achieved success. You 
know why. Your success in this highly or- 
ganized social structure depends to a great 
extent on other people. What other people 
think of you determines the chances to be 
offered to you this coming year. If you are 
a worrier they know it. Nobody dares trust 
a worrier. 

It takes clear concentration to accomplish 
anything. The worrier can't concentrate on 
his work because most of his attention is con- 
centrated on himself — turned inward on his 
petty personal concerns. If you worry about 
ill health you start ill health. 

Your worry thoughts create toxins which, 
as you have seen in the preceding lesson, poi- 
son the entire system. 

Your body and mind are closely related. 
No worrier can stay well. His worry is a fac- 
tory that works overtime manufacturing dis- 
ease. 

85 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

If you are one of those who have a vague 
fear of what the future may bring; of what 
may "happen to befall," remember that you, 
not Chance, are the architect of your future. 
You are building toward it today. The plans 
and specifications are all drawn by your mind. 

If you are keeping your mind busy drawing 
pictures of the things you dread, you are not 
only giving it no time to plan constructively 
but are allowing it to make the very outlines 
you don't want to follow. 

Every thought tends to express itself in ac- 
tion. This is a fundamental psychological 
law. You can't think one way and act an- 
other; you can't think failure and build suc- 
cess. 

If you worry over your past, you are like 
a certain type of the insane. All asylums 
are acquainted with the inmate who sits re- 
hearsing the events of his past and refuses 
even to dress himself for the day. 

If you are concentrating on unhappy mem- 
ories, you are refusing to meet today. If you 
are permitting grief, remorse, bitterness or re- 
gret to absorb the very source of your crea- 
tive powers, — your mind, — you are commit- 
ting mild suicide. 

Tomorrow this day will be a part of your 

86 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

past. If you waste it you add the regret of 
having wasted it to the long list of regrets you 
already have. 

If you would lessen tomorrow's remorse, 
make Today constructive. 

Bury your past and don't visit the grave. 
If you did things or failed to do things that 
hurt you in the past don't let them stretch 
their slimy hands into your future and ruin 
that also. 

The past is gone. It will never return. You 
knew this before I told you. The idea is not 
original with me. 

If you will thrust your past out of your 
consciousness whenever it raises its accusing 
head it can do you no harm. It can only 
harm you as you give it your attention. 
Transfer your attention to other things when- 
ever it approaches and it will eventually re- 
turn no more. 

No matter what you have done or left un- 
done it is over and done with. If you did 
wrong you are making it worse by burning the 
incense of memory at its altar. If you com- 
mitted a sin you are dyeing it deeper every 
time you honor it with your thoughts, for 
your thoughts make it live again and nothing 
eke can. 

87 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

If it was a real sin the only atonement you 
can make is to devote your attention to its 
opposite now. If you think about it you are 
incapable of doing its opposite for our ac- 
tions follow our thoughts. The man who 
worries over his past sins is piling up sins in 
today. 

No matter what you have done, no matter 
of what crime you may be guilty, raise your 
chest, lift your head, look the world in the 
eye. 

I want you to do this because these are 
the first steps toward accomplishing anything 
great. 

If you have done wrong in the past you 
want to make up for it in the future. You 
can't do anything to make up for it if you go 
around with your head hanging. 

No human being has a right to ask you to 
hang your head anyhow. All human beings 
are pretty much alike. We are all of us big 
bundles of instincts. Crime is the overindul- 
gence of instinct. 

With the same instinct equally developed 
and the temptation equally great, the people 
who are criticizing you would doubtless have 
done just as you did, maybe worse. 

88 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 
Stop despising yourself. God made you. 
He gave you the instincts. He knows your 
temptations. He knows that every human 
being does the best he can under every given 
circumstance, with the nature he has, — not 
necessarily the best he knows, but the very 
best the combination of his particular instincts 
plus his particular temptation permitted of at 
the time. 

Don't let anyone tell you that God likes to 
see you ashamed, stricken, crushed to earth. 
That is man's poor little mean way, — the 
craving to see those who disobey him humil- 
iated. 

The Force that rules the universe, that 
keeps myriads of worlds operating with divine 
accuracy throughout unfathomable space, 
must be a constructive Power. The only sure 
way to worship it is not in self-abasement but 
in self-mastery. 

The bigger your sin the greater the need 
for your doing something splendid today. No 
man ever did anything splendid whose head 
hung in shame. Lift yours to the sun. It 
will tell you more about the real God than 
all the human beings can tell you in a thou- 
sand years. 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

It will tell you that everything from sun- 
flowers to human beings must keep their faces 
upturned toward the light if they would grow. 

You have a future to build. The more re- 
grettable your past the more necessary is it 
that you build a shining, worth-while future. 
You can't build anything worth-while with 
your eyes on the past. 

What would you think of a driver who tried 
to steer his car up a rocky grade with his eyes 
on the road behind him instead of the road 
ahead? 

What if he kept looking at all the crooked 
tracks he had made back there and scolding 
himself for them? 

What if he said over and over, "Oh, what 
a mistake that was! I should have known 
better! That was a blunder, over there was 
another and away back there several miles I 
nearly ran into the ditch!" Perhaps he ac- 
tually had a blow-out or a wreck somewhere 
back there. 

Would you expect anything like expert 
driving from that man if he kept worrying 
about that wreck? No indeed. You would 
tell him to forget the crooked tracks, the nar- 
row escapes. Yes, and the wreck, too. 

90 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

Nobody is going to take the trouble to trace 
the windings of your route. 

It isn't as popular today to be a self-con- 
stituted detective as it used to be. Human 
bloodhounds no longer have standing even in 
the church. The man or woman who today 
takes it upon himself to pry into the poor, 
unhappy past of another struggling human 
atom is no longer credited with virtuous mo- 
tives. We know him for just what he is, — a 
scavenger. 

The man who tells anything derogatory to 
another human being is telling a much worse 
story on himself. He is telling that he has a 
putrefying mind. 

Each of us sees the world through our own 
spectacles. Keeping rosy glasses before your 
eyes makes the world a beautiful place. Wear- 
ing dark ones will not make the world dark, 
but it will make it dark for you. 

If you have a habit of seeing evil in others 
it is because you have evil in you. For we 
not only wear our own glasses, we make our 
own glasses out of our minds. 

You are driving the car of your life up the 
arduous grade of the future. Every time you 
look behind you you are missing the best 

91 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
place in the road of today. That means more 
crooked tracks for you to regret tomorrow. 

If you don't want all the Tomorrows filled 
with regrets for Today's poor driving, forget 
the poor driving of Yesterday and steer the 
best you can from this point onward. 

The tracks you have made, bad as they may 
have been, are not very different from those 
of your fellow travelers, after all. We are 
all surprisingly alike. Kipling expressed it 
when he said, "The Colonel's lady and Judy 
O'Grady are sisters under the skin." Alice 
Duer Miller had Life's roadway in mind when 
she said, 

"Democracy is this: 

To hold that all who wander down the pike 

In car or cart, on foot or bike, 

Are much alike, are much alike." 

You may be riding up this highway of life 
on the bicycle of a 20-dollar-a-week job; you 
may be ambling along in a 10-dollar-a-week 
cart, but don't let these things humiliate you. 

There is mighty little difference between 
you and the man who skims past you in the 
big limousine. Realize this fully and you will 
have taken the first step toward a limousine of 
your own. 

92 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

Don't spend your precious time envying the 
other fellow near you on the road. Don't 
salve your wounds with the notion that he 
stole his limousine or got a "head start." 
These things have been done but those who do 
them don't last. They fall behind in the race. 

For it isn't the car you ride in that counts or 
even the "start" found in the money some 
people inherit. The man who inherits a "head 
start" isn't as well equipped as the one who 
reaches the same place by his own efforts. 

When the race ends it is the man who has 
struggled every inch of the way who makes 
good. 

The thing that counts is your driving. It's 
the way you steer and handle your "bike" 
that wins you a Ford or a limousine farther up 
the hill. 

Life is a relay race. You change to a faster 
vehicle as soon as you have earned it. The 
road is lined with all kinds of cars. The kind 
you will have next year depends on the effi- 
ciency of this year's driving, and the amount 
of excess baggage you have in your load. All 
regrets, remorse and despair over Yesterday 
are so much excess baggage. Get rid of them. 

In the famous Marathon races of ancient 
times the runners stripped themselves of 

93 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

everything that could in any way hinder free- 
dom of movement or impede their progress. 

Rid yourself of everything that handicaps 
your efforts. Let go of everything that shack- 
les you. Strip clean for the big race. Un- 
load from your car every ounce of chagrin 
and self-depreciation. Travel "light" as the 
globe trotters say. 

Then to win, keep your hand on the wheel, 
your eye on the road ahead and don't let any- 
one pass you in your own make of car. 

You are going to dump out of your car to- 
day the load of sadness, sorrow and regret 
you have been carrying. As you throw each 
one away take a good look at it and find 
what there was in it that taught you some- 
thing. 

Every unhappy experience you ever had 
concealed a lesson in it somewhere. If you 
don't know where, scrutinize it till you find it. 

I do not maintain that all your troubles are 
sent by a benign Providence as blessings in 
disguise. Most of your troubles are the result 
of your having violated natural law. 

But I do know that you can sift out of each 
tragedy a grain or two of knowledge that will 
protect you in the future. 

94 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

It often happens that the tragedy it pre- 
vents would have been worse than the one 
you had. Many a man has said that his suc- 
cess was built on the knowledge gained from 
his failures. 

My own success, which has emancipated 
me from every anxiety, is my failures capital- 
ized. I cashed in on my mistakes. 

I made some of the worst ones; the num- 
ber and variety of my blunders, sins and fail- 
ures was alarming. And how I worried about 
them! I dragged around with me more dead 
weight of depression than anyone I knew. 

It is a long story, how I changed my life, 
but it can all be told in this: I determined to 
cast off every form of fear. I did it by turn- 
ing my attention away from past failures and 
concentrating it on ways and means for pro- 
fiting by those failures. Today I have those 
old tragedies to thank for my happiness and 
achievement. 

One of the best antidotes for "past" and 
"future" worries is to let yourself live more 
in the "now." Live today within today. 
After all, the only living you ever do is what 
you do in the eternal Now. 

Man crucifies himself between two thieves. 
On one side is the thief of the Past, a dark- 

95 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

visaged spectre of lost opportunities, blasted 
hopes, blighted ambitions. On the other is 
the Future, — glowing, rosy, radiant with the 
things we hope to achieve, — but in reality as 
dangerous a thief as the other, for he deters 
you from effort, with his false promises. He 
justifies your neglected tasks, your wasted 
hours and slipshod ways by saying, "I am 
going to make up for it in the future/' 

That lying, luring phantom, — the phantom 
of a Tomorrow that is never here, — steals 
your life. 

Remember, Today is all you have. Yes- 
terday is gone forever and Tomorrow will 
never come. 

Everything that was ever done was done 
in the glorious living Todays. Today you are 
alive. Today is here. Today is yours. You 
can use it or throw it away. 

The difference between those who achieve 
and those who fail is that the achieving ones 
value their Todays. 

I saw something once that graphically im- 
pressed this upon my mind. 

I was on a train going to keep a Chautau- 
qua engagement. At a small station an old 
lady and her son got on and took the section 

opposite me. 

96 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

The mother had brought so many bundles 
that there was not room for the son, so he 
came over and sat with me. 

He explained that this was his mother's 
first railroad journey. She was very old and 
disliked the idea of going away from her own 
home even to visit relatives. 

But they had at last induced her to take this 
little trip of twenty miles to Springfield, where 
her other son lived. She was as excited as a 
child and had looked forward with the greatest 
anticipation to the journey. 

But she had insisted on bringing with her as 
many of her belongings as both of them could 
carry. She was almost submerged under the 
piles of bundles, grips, suitcases, packages, 
bird cages and boxes, and these she kept re- 
arranging, changing and fussing over. 

Her son, who wanted her to see all the in- 
teresting things along the way, would lean 
over every few moments and say, "Look, 
Mother," but the old lady, without turning 
away from her packages, answered, "Yes, son, 
just as soon as I get these things fixed the way 
I want them/' 

It was a pretty stretch of country in a New 
England state. Low hills, carpeted with fresh 
spring grass, rolled away to the eastward. 

97 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
We heard a meadowlark here and there. But 
the old lady was too intent on her belongings 
to look up. 

After a while, just as she seemed to have 
the last box stowed away and everything ad- 
justed to suit her, the conductor came down 
the aisle calling, "Springfield, — all — off — for 
— Springfield," and at his heels the porter, 
reaching for the old lady's bundles. 

I shall never forget the dismayed look on 
her face. "You don't mean this is where I get 
off! Oh, I just got my things fixed ready to 
enjoy the scenery! Surely it's a mistake. 
This can't be our station." 

The porter assured her it was and hustled 
her and her possessions out on the platform. 

There are a lot of people like that old lady. 
I used to be. Maybe you are. You are al- 
ways getting ready to live, preparing to enjoy 
life. You are spending all your thought on 
the petty concerns of today, — the little bun- 
dles of daily worries, — with never an outward 
gaze toward the beauties on the horizon. 

And some day, just as you get the poor lit- 
tle affairs adjusted ready to sit back and live, 
the Conductor will call your station; the black 
porter, Death, will turn deaf ears to your wails 

98 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

and hustle you off the car. The train will 
go on without you. 

Today you are still on that train. It is fly- 
ing faster than the Twentieth Century Lim- 
ited, which makes the trip between New York 
and Chicago in eighteen hours. 

Every day, every hour you are passing 
through a wonderful country, which you will 
have no chance to see again. 

Life is a one-way journey on a Limited, — 
no round trips and no stops. 

If you want to make the most of it, arrange 
your baggage by organizing yourself effi- 
ciently. Then take time to enjoy the journey. 

No man ever sank under the burdens of 
today. It is only when we add to Today's 
burdens the memory of Yesterday's and the 
imagination of Tomorrow's that the load 
seems more than we can bear. 

You are called upon to live only one minute 
at a time. Control your thinking minute by 
minute and you have solved the worry prob- 
lem. 

The usual way people set about stopping 
worry is a wrong one. That is why it is so 
unsuccessful. The worrier tries to cure him- 
self by the sheer power of his will. This is a 
mistake. 

99 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Worry is never to be beaten by force. You 
have got to replace it with something else. 

When your mind gets to dwelling upon 
some one troublesome matter with feverish 
insistence, when you find yourself irritable, 
depressed, overwrought, gently turn your at- 
tention to something else. 

At first you will be troubled by your mind 
slipping off the thoughts. Bring it back each 
time, not with a jerk, not with force, but 
quietly, patiently. Do this each time and 
after a few times it will be less inclined to 
wander. 

This is not only the secret of conquering 
worry but of developing the most valuable of 
all mental faculties, — concentration. 

Your attention is what determines your 
happiness. You control your attention. You 
are its master. You can, at any moment, take 
it away from one thing and place it on an- 
other. Unless you are feeble-minded you can 
do this, and I know you are not feeble-minded 
because no feeble-minded person would be 
interested in reading this book. 

You cannot kill worry by blows or any kind 
of direct fighting. You can't kill it by sim- 
ply saying, "I am not going to worry." 

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HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

If you went into a dark room and wanted it 
light you would not try shoveling out the 
darkness, would you? You would turn on 
the light. 

Worry is a mental darkness. Picks and 
shovels won't remove it, but turning on the 
light will. 

Here is another natural law : No two things 
can occupy the same space at the same time. 
No two thoughts can occupy your mind at the 
same time. 

Whenever you want to be rid of a worry 
thought, deliberately turn on the light by 
turning to a pleasant thought. You can think 
only one thing at a time and if you think 
courage or joy you can't think worry thoughts 
at the same time. 

The cure is for you to make, through your 
own will power. I am only the messenger of 
truth, the purveyor of this knowledge. No 
one can make you stop worrying. I am show- 
ing you in this lesson just how you can cure 
yourself. 

The foundation upon which this lesson is 
based is the great law that no two objects can 
occupy the same space at the same time. I 
repeat it here for it is the most important 
thing in this lesson. 

101 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

When worry is occupying your attention 
all good thoughts are shut out. When con- 
fidence is in possession, worry is out. That 
is all there is to the law of worry, — a big law 
but simple to operate just as the greatest ma- 
chinery is operated by the pressing of a but- 
ton. 

The fact is that the real responsibility rests 
upon you. And that is just, for the man who 
wouldn't brace up enough to apply these sim- 
ple rules hasn't earned peace of mind. 

Whether or not you are worth saving is 
somewhat determined by whether or not you 
have the little bit of backbone necessary to 
follow these few rules in your daily life. 

Start today with the fixed conviction that 
worry is a mental condition; that it is unreal 
and like all unreal things cannot hurt you un- 
less you are afraid and even then it is only 
your own fear that hurts you. 

Worry may make horrible pictures in your 
mind; she may distort and magnify your prob- 
lems. But if you will put a little starch into 
your jawbone and your backbone you can 
expel her instantly. 

She may come back, that is true. But if 
you can throw her out once you can again. 

102 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 
You can't cut down a tree with one blow of 
the axe. But many blows and it falls for 
good. 

Your brain is a garden. In it there are roses 
and weeds fighting for possession. If you let 
the weeds get ahead the roses will die. But 
if you will snip off the weeds as fast as they 
appear above the ground, the roses will thrive. 

You must be vigilant. You must nip your 
bad thoughts in the bud. Whenever a worry 
weed pops up in your mental garden, call on 
your will power for its scissors. Say to your- 
self, "This thing is negative, unreal; it is a 
bugaboo, a black nothingness. And I, a hu- 
man being, a living, thinking creature, am not 
going to be downed by a thing that does not 
exist." 

You are free. You have your place in the 
world. You, and nothing else, are master of 
your thoughts. You have enough will power 
at this moment to carry you through, and 
you are going to have more when you have 
read Chapter VI of this book on "How to 
Build Will Power." 

You must fear no evil. The worst evil that 
can befall you is worry and you can forestall 
that. The weeds in your brain garden will 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

die of neglect if you spend your attention on 
nourishing the flowers. 

The next time things are discouraging to 
you, instead of weeping at the shrine of Fear, 
try this: At first, if it seems hard to smile or 
transfer your thoughts, walk to your open 
window; raise your chest; lift your head and 
breathe deeply for just two minutes. You 
will be amazed to see what happens to you. 
You are not as worried as you were two min- 
utes before. 

No one can be desolate when his lungs are 
full of good fresh air. All worry is some- 
what physical, and when your lungs are full 
of good air all your physical processes are 
vitalized. 

Now if air was something only millionaires 
could get there would be some excuse for you. 
But it is the freest thing in the world. It is 
our greatest necessity and God put it every- 
where for us. One good lungful of it and you 
are a changed man. 

You see Nature is your friend, the guardian 
angel that hovers over you every moment, 
ready to help you the instant you will let her. 
For Nature, you know, has her big purpose 
of life preservation in view, and the weakling 
thwarts that purpose. The moment you start 

104 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

being strong she puts her forces behind you. 
If you keep trying she will see that you don't 
fail. 

Hereafter, when worry thoughts creep in, 
when depressing mental pictures begin to get 
hold of you, take the deep breaths that start 
your blood racing. This gives you pleasanter 
thoughts for the simple, scientific reason that 
no brain can have "the blues" when the blood 
is circulating rapidly through it. 

Depression is always associated with slug- 
gish physical processes and especially with 
lazy blood circulation. Every deep breath 
speeds up heart action and thus stirs the whole 
circulatory system to keener activity. 

But don't stop at deep breathing. Turn on 
the current of your will power and let happy 
thoughts assume vividness in your mind ; talk 
to some one whose presence reassures you; 
listen to cheerful music; read a Booth Tar- 
kington story, an Irvin Cobb article or a Walt 
Mason jingle, — anything to throw the switch 
on your train of thought and send it down 
another track. 

There are hundreds of things you can do to 
send your thoughts into pleasant channels if 
you try. The trouble with the chronic wor- 
rier is that he won't try. He says, "Pll try 

105 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

it, but it won't do me any good." Of course 
it doesn't. For he hasn't really tried. When 
you start with a negative attitude you are not 
trying. 

Worry, like Memory and Will, is a mental 
faculty. These faculties react somewhat like 
human servants. They don't do a thing if 
they know you are not expecting them to. 

Youir mind is a "maverick," — an unbroken 
colt. It rebels at training at first, but pretty 
soon, if you keep the reins in your hand and 
follow these rules, it will be the servant of 
your will. You can guide it wherever you 
wish. You can guide it into the habit of right 
thinking, optimistic thinking, constructive 
thinking. 

The man who has mastered his thinking 
has mastered his life. 

If people only knew what they are doing 
when they allow themselves to think they are 
failures, when they picture themselves as 
down and out nobodies! 

If they could only see how these images of 
weakness etch themselves into their brains, 
usurp the reins and take charge of their affairs 
nothing could induce them to harbor them for 
an instant. They would drive them out as 
they would expel a robber from their homes. 

106 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

We carefully lock the door of our offices 
and homes against thieves, but leave the 
doors of our minds open to the thieves of 
worry that rob us of happiness, health and 
efficiency. 

No matter how priceless may be the val- 
uables in your office or home, the loss of them 
all would be nothing compared to the loss of 
hope, courage and confidence. 

Your success depends, not on any of the 
material belongings you may have locked up 
in the safe, but on the state of your mind 
from day to day. 

Fear is the worst enemy you have. It is 
the only enemy that can down you. It can 
only do so if you let it. It is powerless to 
harm you except as you bow down to it and 
relinquish yourself into its hands. 

What would you think of a man who per- 
sisted in keeping his bitterest enemy near him 
all the time? You would say he was a fool. 

This is exactly what the chronic worrier 
does. If Worry wanders away for a moment 
Habit runs after her, brings her back and the 
worrier gives her his attention. As I have 
pointed out before, the thing that has your 
attention has the richest gift you have to be- 
stow. 

107 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

It is for this same reason that I don't want 
you to worry over any of your human enem- 
ies. Many people worry because they have 
been wronged. Doubtless people have 
wronged you. 

Everyone has been wronged, mistreated, 
misjudged, misunderstood. Anyone who ever 
did anything worth doing has been misunder- 
stood. Anyone who ever mingled much with 
others has been hurt sometimes in the shuffle. 

But that is all the more reason why you 
should not let people hurt you any more. 

When you worry about the wrongs done to 
you you are laying at the feet of those who 
hurt you the most precious gift you can give, 
— your attention. Now if he wronged you 
unintentionally you have no right to judge 
him. If he wronged you intentionally that 
man certainly does not deserve these priceless 
gifts of yours, — your thoughts. The only 
way to vanquish an enemy is to grow so big 
you forget he ever existed. 

If you are inclined to be sensitive to what 
people say about you, to worry over what 
people may think of you, there is just one 
way to silence them. Moreover it will make 
them admire you. That is never to let them 
know you are sensitive. 

108 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

The "survival of the fittest" is an unwrit- 
ten law that has almost as much power in 
the human world as in the animal world, and 
everyone knows what happens in the animal 
world when a creature shows fear. 

Did you ever notice what happens to the 
dog that goes around with his tail between his 
legs? Every little terrier snaps at him. He 
is usually a rather nice dog, just as sensitive 
people are often higher up, evolutionally , than 
those whose criticisms they fear. But he will 
never go far till he schools himself to ignore 
the carpers. 

There is only one way to ward off criticism : 
be nothing, say nothing, do nothing. 

Anyone who accomplishes has mud spat- 
tered on him occasionally but he pays no at- 
tention to it. If you want to escape with the 
minimum of mud let people know their mud 
neither interests you nor harms you. 

The world does homage to the man who 
isn't afraid of it. It snaps at the one who is 
always on the lookout for its opinion. 

Never worry over what people are saying 
about you and they will never say anything 
very bad. 

On the other hand, the man who is always 
worrying about what the world says of him 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

will never give it reason to say anything very 
good. 

If you had a big manufacturing plant run 
by electricity do you think you would leave 
the power house, where all the current was 
generated, wide open to thieves and vandals? 
Do you think you would go so far as to en- 
courage them to come in and pilfer? Would 
you keep your most valuable servant, Atten- 
tion, stationed at the door to welcome them 
in to destroy? 

You would not think of doing such a thing. 
You would keep that power house guarded 
day and night, you would let no one into it 
who could harm the priceless machinery, and 
you would employ in it only the most effi- 
cient assistants. 

Your mind is your power house, — the sta- 
tion that generates the current by which 
everything you do in life must be accom- 
plished. Worry, fear, anxiety and doubt are 
the vandals that wreck its delicate mechan- 
isms. 

Yet your worriers let them plunder around 
in there at will, sapping your vitality, destroy- 
ing your initiative, demoralizing your greatest 
forces. 

110 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

And not this alone: These thieves turn the 
current of your power against you, and burn 
down your property. 

Many diseases and most failures are the 
direct result of this great power being turned 
against you. Learn to lock them out. Re- 
fuse them your attention and they are help- 
less to harm you. 

If you have followed me closely up to 
this point you now realize that all worry is 
merely a series of unpleasant mental pictures; 
that when you sit in the movie theatre of your 
imagination, gazing at those unpleasant pic- 
tures over and over again, you are worrying. 

As I have pointed out, these pictures are 
made by the turning of your attention on the 
unhappy subject. I have shown you that all 
you need to do to free yourself from worry 
is to turn your attention to a happy subject in 
your life. 

To do this, let the happy subject assume 
greater vividness than the other and then hold 
it there. This is the secret of attention. This 
can be done for a few seconds at a time by 
anyone of average intelligence. 

And when you have done it for a few sec- 
onds at a time you can soon do it for a few 
moments at a time. Soon you will be able to 

111 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

sustain this happy mental attitude over a per- 
iod of half an hour, then an hour and grad- 
ually to whole days. 

"Be free of worry for days at a time?" you 
ask. Certainly. To be sure, Worry will come 
near the door of your mind often at first, for 
you see, she has the habit because you have 
been so good to her. 

But when you ignore her and give your at- 
tention to uplifting thoughts she acquires an- 
other habit, — the habit of tapping on your 
door less often. After a little while she will 
come only occasionally, and then there will 
come the time when she troubles you only at 
wide intervals. 

By that time you will have mastered your- 
self so well that your subconscious will turn 
her away without interrupting you. You will 
be so completely the ruler of your life that 
you will scarcely be aware of her presence. 

Start today. When you fail don't be dis- 
couraged. Try again. Remember the hap- 
piness of your life depends on the happiness 
of your thoughts and you make your thoughts 
by the placing of your attention. 

You are a free agent. You are the captain 
of your own mental ship. You can pilot it 
where you will. You can think only the 

112 



HOW TO STOP WORRYING 

thoughts that are agreeable to you. You can, 
at any moment, produce in consciousness up- 
lifting, inspiring thoughts. By so doing you 
can build an uplifting, inspiring life. 

You are going to start right now to build 
the kind of future you want. You are going 
to set your great forces to working for you 
instead of against you. You are going to de- 
vote your mind to drawing the kind of plans 
you want to come true instead of the ones you 
dread. You are going to right about face and 
start up the road to Success regardless of what 
anybody thinks or says. You are going to 
apply these simple, easy rules and remake 
your existence into a happy, healthful, joyous 
life. 

Let me give you my parting secret, — the 
secret which, as we used to say as children 
is "just between you and me." It is this: 
Don't explain your plans, don't announce 
your new regime to anyone. Soon they will 
be wanting to know what has made the beau- 
tiful change in you. Then will be the time 
to tell them. Pass this lesson on to them so 
it can help them as it has already helped thou- 
sands of men and women. 



113 



CHAPTER III 
HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

INVICTUS 
Out of the night that covers me, 

Black as the pit from pole to pole, 
I thank whatever gods there he 

For my unconquerable soul. 

In the fell clutch of circumstance 

I have not winced nor cried aloud; 
Under the bludgeoning of chance 

My head is bloody, but unbowed. 

Beyond this vale of wrath and tears 

Looms but the horror of the shade; 
And yet the menace of the years 

Finds and shall find me, unafraid. 

It matters not how straight the gate, 

How charged with punishments the scroll, 

I am the master of my fate; 
I am the captain of my soul. 

WILLIAM HENLEY. 

AVE you ever gone into a situation 
with all the materials for winning 
and lost just because you lacked 
U^Z^ g&Q self-confidence? Have you been 
tortured by the chagrin of knowing that due 
to your self -consciousness you cut a sorry fig- 
ure before someone whom you especially 

114 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

wished to impress? Have you stayed awake 
nights imagining how much more creditably 
you could acquit yourself if you could only 
try it over again? Have you made plans for 
retrieving your lost ground with that person 
and invented ways and means of meeting him 
again to show him your strong, true self? 

These things have happened to billions of 
people. Countless men and women of brilliant 
qualities suffer humiliation, despair and fail- 
ure merely for the lack of self-confidence, 
while others of less ability walk off with the 
world's prizes because they possess this qual- 
ity. High places are full of mediocre individ- 
uals who got there almost solely on their self- 
confidence. Many a superior soul has grav- 
itated to a lowly station and been compelled 
to stay there solely because he lacked it. 

Perhaps some day the fairy tale we were 
taught at school, to the effect that * 'merit 
always wins" may come true, but nothing 
could be further from the truth today. Today 
the world is organized of the self-confident, 
by the self-confident and for the self-confident. 
The standard by which people are measured 
is not "How much pure gold is there in you?", 
but "How much brass have you mixed with 

it?" 

115 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

To be sure, you must have some gold 
in you. If you haven't, the acid tests of our 
competitive society will soon show it and you 
will be thrown out on the dump. 

But gold alone won't do. Everywhere the 
demand is for the individuals who have not 
only a good stock of goods, but whose "front 
windows" show off to advantage. You are 
all acquainted with this in the business and 
professional world. 

But it is getting to be true also in the realm 
of romance. The girl who was modest, self- 
depreciatory, — the kind they said had "a heart 
of gold" — used to be the kind men wanted to 
marry. 

But the modern Lothario knows that kind 
of girl won't make the showing he needs. So 
he marries the girl with snap and self-con- 
fidence. 

And you can't blame him. A man's wife 
must be a helpmate today just as always. She 
must be an asset. She must, just as always, 
meet his friends, associates and superiors with 
the manner betokening his success. Self- 
depreciatory, self-conscious people can't do 
this. Less confidence is had in you the min- 
ute you are known to be allied with timid peo- 
ple. 

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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

In the good old days when a man's wife was 
considered somewhat as a bit of his personal 
property that modest, shrinking manner was 
fine. Naturally, one didn't expect anything 
else of one's furniture. 

But a change has come over the times. To- 
day a wife is known to be a man's partner and 
timid partners are liabilities. 

Not only from this material standpoint is 
the self-confidence of women being taken into 
consideration, but it is being recognized that 
from the viewpoint of woman's highest mis- 
sion, — motherhood, — it is vital. 

It is a well known psychological law that 
the mental attitudes of children are largely the 
result of parental training. A self-conscious, 
timid mother trains self -consciousness and tim- 
idity into her children, and no father in the 
world wants his children to be that. 

So from money to motherhood it pays to 
be self-confident. Not conceited, not vain, not 
arrogant, but filled with the consciousness of 
strength. 

I am always being asked in my lectures how 
I differentiate between conceit and self-con- 
fidence. This is the difference: The con- 
ceited man tries to make himself seem larger 
by making others seem smaller; the self-con- 

117 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

fident man expresses faith in his own ability to 
meet any situation while giving everyone else 
his chance. It is his belief in his power to win 
in the open rather than any attempt to take 
advantage, which characterizes the self-confi- 
dent man. It is in this sense that I refer to 
self-confidence in this lesson. 

The "I-am-the-captain-of-my-soul" attitude, 
the "unbowed," "unafraid," "master-of-my- 
fate" conviction is what I mean by self-confi- 
dence. Because it is what you mean also, and 
what every human being craves, the world 
has, for this one poem, placed the name of 
William Henley among the immortals. 

Before I tell you how to become self-confi- 
dent perhaps you would like to know what 
causes self-consciousness. It is suggestion. 
Regardless of what form self-consciousness 
takes or on what subject the victim is most 
sensitive, suggestion is always the cause. 

I once heard William James say, "No crea- 
ture is born timid. Look at the naturalness 
of all animals. Human beings are made timid 
by suggestions from external sources, — peo- 
ple or things. These suggestions literally make 
the individual 'conscious of self and there his 
troubles begin. 

Spontaneity, one of the most attractive 
118 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

qualities, is impossible to the man who is con- 
scious of himself. His mind is always turned 
inward upon himself instead of upon the 
thing he is trying to do. Consequently he 
never does it effectively." 

Suggestions which make people self-con- 
scious come through various channels. The 
extent to which any suggestion affects us is 
determined by three elements, — our respect 
for the person or thing making the suggestion, 
the clearness with which the suggestion is 
made, and the degree of our own sensitiveness. 

The latter element is most important. The 
very "tough-skinned" are almost impervious to 
suggestion, while the extremely sensitive in- 
dividual registers the merest suggestion. These 
naturally sensitive men and women are doubt- 
less the most wretched of beings. To them 
the world is a hostile place bristling with in- 
imical, or at best, unpleasant forces. They are 
constantly being wounded, embarrassed, hu- 
miliated. 

Many of my students have told me they 
would rather have any affliction in the world 
than their self -consciousness. 

They came nearer to the truth than they 
knew. Self-consciousness is an affliction 
amounting almost to a mental ailment. It is 

119 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

a fixed, predominant mental attitude which, 
after a few years, becomes embedded in the 
subconscious. 

Let us look at two of your young men 
friends, — both well born, well educated, well 
in body. 

One walks down the street with his chest 
up, his shoulders back, his head high. He 
walks as if he were going somewhere, as if 
he knew where it was and what he was go- 
ing to do when he got there. He sees you 
coming and has a real smile at the bursting 
point by the time you get there. He speaks 
to you dynamically, cordially, and if he is an 
old friend and has the time he will shake 
hands. 

He probably won't slap you on the back. 
Jarring your friends' lungs out of place is not 
as popular as it used to be. 

When he shakes your hand you will notice 
something. He won't crush the bones, — that 
isn't good form any more, either, — but you 
will know something has hold of you. He 
does it as though he liked you. His eye has a 
sparkle in it, his voice has a ring to it that 
seems alive. 

Alive, that's it. The self-confident man or 
woman simply seems more alive. That's why 

120 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

you like to trust them to do things. You be- 
lieve they can meet emergencies, you have 
faith in their powers. And whether it is a 
heart or a job you have to offer, you select 
this kind of chap to receive it. 

What about the other young man? Re- 
member, he has just as much of every ma- 
terial thing as the former, — money, clothes, 
education, looks. 

But he walks with his chest down, his head 
slanted a little and a slightly ashamed look in 
his eye. 

Has he done anything to be ashamed of? 
No. He is a fine, clean, honest young chap 
with nothing at all against him. But he walks 
and stands and shakes hands as though he 
owed the world an apology. 

Now about this time something has begun 
to happen in your mind. Your mental pro- 
cesses have operated at such lightning-like 
speed you are not conscious of each step, but 
this is what happened: You saw apology 
written all over that young man; you would 
like to like him, you would like to give him 
that job, but he seems to be afraid of himself. 
You can't see why he should be, but, your 
mind argues, "He knows himself better than 
I, and he ought to know." 

121 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Also, you know that whether he is weak or 
not, as long as he acts weak he will never get 
a hearing. 

You know he wouldn't do for a job requir- 
ing initiative for initiative takes a little daring. 

You would dislike to have your daughter 
marry him because you have a mental pic- 
ture of him getting the worst of it from every- 
one. If you are the daughter yourself you 
wouldn't want him for a husband unless you 
feel you have enough self-confidence for two. 

The fact of it is that the world does take 
us at our own valuation. It is too busy with 
its own affairs to take the trouble to investi- 
gate us. It prefers to accept us at face value, 
at least until events shall prove the contrary. 

So the young man with the self-confident 
manner gets the chances. Enough chances are 
all that any of us need. The man who gets 
them wins. The one who doesn't get them, 
no matter how great his natural abilities, falls 
behind. 

Now what was it that made you distrust 
the second young man? It was his poor ad- 
vertisement of himself. 

You are your own advertisement. Every- 
thing about you is advertising you all the 
time, — -your facial expression, your walk, 

122 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

your posture, the way your hands act, the 
way your head sits on your shoulders, the 
direction your chin points, the tones of your 
voice, the grip of your hands, the way your 
feet hit the ground, etc. 

Every person is telling what he thinks of 
himself every waking moment. It is impos- 
sible for him to disguise it. He may camou- 
flage one or two elements, — such as the tones 
of his voice or the shake of his hand, — but he 
cannot camouflage them all for there are too 
many. 

Every muscle in the human body expresses 
states of mind. Every thought, however tran- 
sient, has its corresponding muscular mechan- 
ism which reacts instantly and automatically 
whenever that thought flits through con- 
sciousness. 

In each individual there are millions of these 
outlets. Each one is a little headgate in the 
intricate system, and the instant it is un- 
guarded, out flows the betraying expression. 
A clever man may become adept at guarding 
the main gates, but they are always being off- 
set by the opposite testimony from the little 
ones. 

In short, you are advertising your own es- 
timate of yourself every waking moment, in 

123 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

signs so glaring that every friend knows what 
you really think of yourself. Strangers who 
pass you on the street know whether or not 
you believe in yourself. 

The timid person is full of fear. He may 
have unlimited moral courage and often has, 
but he is afraid of himself. This settles into 
a fixed attitude, — the attitude that he is un- 
equal to the occasion; that he is going to ac- 
quit himself poorly; that he is beaten before 
he starts. With this thought uppermost it is 
impossible to win. As long as it forms the 
background of his thoughts it will influence 
every act of his life. 

An anonymous author has put it this way: 

"If you think you're outclassed you are. 
You've got to think high to rise. 
You've got to believe in yourself 

Before you can ever win a prize. 
Life's laurels don't always go 

To the stronger or swifter man; 
But soon or late the man who wins 
Is the fellow who thinks he can." 
No power on earth can save you from de- 
feat if you expect it. Because the man who 
thinks defeat acts defeat. The man who acts 
defeated is defeated before he starts. 

But he is not defeated by external things as 
he imagines. He is defeated by himself. 

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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

The self-conscious person is defeated by his 
self-consciousness. Everyone is aware of it. 
Some pity him, some despise him, but none 
dares trust him with responsibility. Respon- 
sibility and self-fear can't work together. So 
all the good places go to those who have the 
self-faith attitude. 

Ex-President Eliot of Harvard said: "There 
is no measuring the extent to which other 
peoples' opinions of us affect our lives. The 
impressions others have of us determine, to a 
great extent, the opportunities offered to us, 
and these, in turn, determine the heights we 
achieve." 

Did you ever stop to think how everything 
you want out of life is within the hands of 
other people to give you or withhold from 
you? 

To be sure, no one person or small group 
of persons can turn the tide of your life per- 
manently, but if we could bring together all 
the people with whom a man came in contact 
from the cradle to the grave we would find 
that his life had been a failure or a success 
according to whether these people had opened 
or closed the avenues of opportunity to him. 

If we could go a step further and interview 
every person who had used his influence for or 

125 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

against that man each would tell us he acted 
according to the impression he had of the 
man. 

Now the impression you make on others is 
due almost solely to the impression you have 
of yourself. If you are afraid of yourself 
others are afraid of you ; if you trust yourself 
others trust you. Confidence begets confi- 
dence. 

Having seen the contrast between the self- 
confident and the self-conscious, let us look 
into the law of suggestion whose workings 
bring it about. That law is this: You tend 
to follow every suggestion made to you un- 
less inhibited by a stronger suggestion in an- 
other direction. 

It is not necessary here to go into the rami- 
fications of suggestion, — that most powerful 
combination of forces in our lives, — except to 
point out that every act is, directly or indi- 
rectly, the result of a suggestion from some- 
thing or somebody. 

Everything from love-making to advertis- 
ing is based on the law of suggestion. The 
most important factor, as before stated, is the 
sensitiveness or suggestibility of the individ- 
ual. Close to this is the element of respect for 
the person or thing making the suggestion. 

126 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

Right here comes one of the most deplor- 
able facts concerning the big question of self- 
confidence: Most self-conscious people are 
made so by their parents or others with whom 
they grow up. 

The child is taught that he is "too little*' or 
"too young" to do this or that. He is taught 
fear of the dark, fear of policemen, fear of his 
playmates, fear of his parents, and hundreds 
of other things. 

Rollin Wallingford, the noted Personality 
Specialist and Child Psychologist, says, "If 
you wish your child to be thoroughly self-con- 
fident see to it that you suggest to him only 
those things which you wish to see come true 
in his life." 

With no realization of the wrong they are 
doing, parents who feel unequal to the task of 
disciplining their children call to their aid the 
worst enemy of every creature, — the instinct 
of fear. The extent to which this meets with 
success depends, as before stated, on the sen- 
sitiveness of the individual child and the 
finesse with which the suggestions are made. 
The source from which the suggestions come 
is not questioned. 

As we grow older we are saved from many 
dangerous suggestions by our distrust of the 

127 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

person making the suggestion. Even the child 
learns at an early age the groundlessness of 
some of these parental bugaboos and there- 
after takes everything his parents tell him with 
a "grain of salt." 

But the self-confidence of the sensitive child 
is often hopelessly ruined by this time. He 
has been told so many times "he mustn't at- 
tempt what the others do/' "he might fail 
and then what would people say," "he hasn't 
the ability" to do this or that, "children are to 
be seen, not heard," "those people are looking 
at you," etc., till he feels that all eyes are 
glued on him, that he is the center of the uni- 
verse. 

The damage is soon done. These sugges- 
tions, like all early suggestions, sink deep into 
the subconscious and there form the main- 
spring of conduct for all later life. 

Parents are committing crimes when they 
suggest weakness, incapacity and self-distrust 
to their children. 

All these mistakes are made with the best 
motives in the world, but natural law is nat- 
ural law and operates without regard to "good 
intentions." 

Parents bring up their children under the 
pall of self-fear, and then wonder why they 

128 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

do not blossom out self-confident and self- 
reliant at twenty or so. 

Last year the parents of a seventeen-year- 
old boy brought their son to us for a personal 
analysis. 

"We want you," they said, "to give Wil- 
liam your psychological and other tests and 
tell us why it is that he doesn't get on better 
in high school. 

He is all right as far as we can see, — per- 
fectly healthy, lots better looking than the 
rest of those young fellows, if we do say it; 
has had the very best home training, and has 
no bad habits whatever. But he lets the rest 
of them go clear ahead of him; he always 
takes a back seat; he won't put himself for- 
ward as a strapping boy like that ought to; 
just won't take part in anything. Why they 
had some oratorical contests last month and 
the boy that got first prize doesn't compare 
with William. But do you think William 
would enter? Not for anything. We begged 
him to, and promised a gold watch if he 
would, but it didn't do any good. Now we 
want to know what ails him." 

Self-consciousness was all that ailed Wil- 
liam. He passed every test ahead of his years. 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

He was far above the average in physique, 
health, general points and personality. 

But when it came to the question, "When 
you were young were you encouraged by your 
parents or pushed into the background?" He 
wrote: "Pushed into the background. Dis- 
suaded by father and mother from almost 
everything I wanted to do." 

Further examination revealed that his par- 
ents had never permitted him to engage in 
competitive sports as a little boy. 

Out of several thousands of private students 
more than half have come to us to be cured 
of self -consciousness, and of these over sev- 
enty per cent have answered that they were 
"pushed into the background" as children. 

The picture each one of them carried of 
himself in his mind was that of a person un- 
equal to emergencies, one certain to go down 
before opposition. Staying in the rear and 
giving front places to others had become a 
habit. 

Though each case differs somewhat accord- 
ing to the personal experiences of the individ- 
ual, every person can greatly increase his self- 
confidence by following the rules laid down 
in this lesson. 

The first step is to realize that your self-con- 
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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

sciousness is an unnatural condition; that you 
were not born self-conscious, but have been 
made so by a series of false suggestions. In 
other words, the law of suggestion has been 
used against you. 

Your problem henceforth is to reverse that 
law and make it work for you. 

Here are the three stages by which the law 
of suggestion operates: 

Suggestion 

Visualization 

Action 

The suggestion that you were unequal to the 
situation brought a mental picture of yourself 
to fit it, — a visualization of yourself as weaker 
than the others in that situation. 

Every thought tends to express itself in ac- 
tion. Immediately this thought or mental pic- 
ture of weakness brings forth your actions in 
accordance with it. These actions of yours 
betray the state of your mind to others and 
they, taking you at your own valuation, ex- 
pect you thereafter to act self-consciously. 

They show that they expect you to act this 
way. This suggestion from them starts the 
vicious circle all over again. 

You do not consciously figure all this out. 
You are merely aware that you have acted in 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

a way that did not do you justice. You know 
you didn't express yourself well, didn't make 
a good impression. You are sure others are 
measuring you accordingly and expect you to 
play the same role next time. 

They show this expectation in various sub- 
tle ways. The task of overthrowing their pre- 
conceived impressions now seems so great that 
you do not feel equal to it and fall into the re- 
tiring, self-depreciatory attitude permanently. 

To pull yourself out of it, reverse the law. 
It is easier than you think. You have two big 
advantages. First, you have your real nature 
on your side when you start after self-confi- 
dence, for self-confidence is natural to all liv- 
ing creatures. 

Second, you have this advantage: That 
there is one person to whose suggestions you 
are more susceptible than those of anyone 
else. That person is yourself. Every sugges- 
tion you give yourself affects you more surely 
and swiftly than those from any other source. 

Therefore, to reverse the law, suggest to 
yourself that you are self-confident. This is 
true. You are by nature. You were created 
that way. But you have been deceived into 
acting otherwise. Look back on your experi- 
ences and see how unreal, unnatural and false 

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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

to your true self you always felt when you 
were acting self-consciously. Recall how self - 
confidently you perform all acts when abso- 
lutely alone. This is the ultimate proof that 
man was born self-confident. Only when he 
feels the presence of others does anyone feel 
awkward and embarrassed. 

You learned in the previous lesson on 
"Worry" that you could change the state of 
your mind at any moment by changing your 
attention. 

Transfer your attention for a moment from 
the idea of self-consciousness to the idea of 
self-confidence. Hold that idea for one in- 
stant by your watch, and note what happens 
to you. 

I want you to do this one second the first 
time, two seconds the second time, three sec- 
onds the third time and so on many times to- 
day until you get on "speaking terms" once 
more with your real self. 

Tomorrow decide what you most want to 
accomplish, what you wish to become. Then. 
in the silence of your own mind, say to your- 
self, "I shall accomplish that. I shall make 
this come true." When a doubt comes creep- 
ing into your mind don't let it disturb you. 

Use the law of attention which you learned in 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

the previous lesson, to turn it away, and go on 
with your affirmations. 

I want you to be a victor in life, and you 
shall be if you will follow the instructions I 
give you. 

But you must get away from the ragpick- 
er's vision you have been holding of yourself. 
You are not a worm, a crawling thing. You 
are a human being, created to stand erect and 
look the world in the face. Start today to lift 
your chest and do it. 

If you want people to believe in you you 
must believe in yourself. You must express 
that belief by your voice, your walk, your 
handshake, your bodily posture, by keeping 
your chin out and your head high. You must 
put vim, energy, "go" into all your actions, 
for these will convince others of your ability 
and they will give you opportunities. Keep- 
ing up the same actions will enable you to 
make good on those opportunities. 

The victor, the winner in life's battles, 
wears an air of confidence, assurance and su- 
periority. His bearing is one of force, his very 
presence imparts a sense of power. You spot 
him as the leader, you would pin your faith 
to him in a contest. The vanquished wears 

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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

the air of defeat, he lacks assurance, aggres- 
siveness. Which face do you want to wear? 

There is but one answer. You wish to wear 
the face of the victor. Well, it is for you to 
acquire. Today I ask you to put it on whether 
you feel equal to it or not, somewhat as the 
masquerader dons his for the ball, but with 
this big difference: You put yours on with 
the determination not to take it off; to keep 
it there till its shining visage shall become 
your own. 

Every time you think of yourself think of 
your highest ideal of yourself, — strong, re- 
sourceful, influential, successful in just the 
work you want to do. 

If this sounds superficial to you remem- 
ber what Munsterberg said to the Harvard stu- 
dents in his class in Psychology: "Young 
men, whatever you wish to become begin 
today, this very hour, to live that ideal. Act 
it, think it, talk it, visualize yourself as that 
and that only. Never let a picture of your- 
self as anything else stay in your mind. 

"If you wish to become a great lawyer start 
this moment to think of yourself as already a 
great lawyer. Make every action one befit- 
ting a great lawyer. Make every tone of your 
voice, every gesture, every posture, every 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

statement you utter, worthy of a great lawyer. 
Refuse to admit that you are only a student 
perhaps earning your way through this great 
institution. See this institution rather as the 
alma mater which gave this great lawyer to 
the world. In this way you can achieve the 
impossible/' 

If you fail to see the necessity for this, re- 
mind yourself that the actor who grips you by 
the realism of his art has achieved it only after 
long rehearsals in private. 

Your life is like that. You have played the 
self-conscious role because you saw a mental 
picture of yourself as a self-conscious individ- 
ual. You can reverse it and hereafter play a 
self-confident, victorious one by reversing the 
picture inside your mind. 

Under no circumstances allow yourself to 
think of yourself as a weakling or a failure. 
Never make derogatory remarks of yourself 
any more than you would make them of oth- 
ers. 

Don't criticize yourself to others; don't 
tell your faults; don't depreciate yourself. 
Every time you do these things you are tend- 
ing to fix upon yourself the weaknesses of 
which you accuse yourself; you tend to be- 
come what you say of yourself. When people 

136 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

give you compliments or praise, don't apolo- 
gize, or blush. Accept them. 

If you think they are more than you de- 
serve, determine to catch up. Determine to 
become worthy. 

Take it for granted that you have the self- 
confidence and enthusiasm to do what you 
want to do, and soon you will find yourself in 
possession of these qualities when the need 
arises. They are there, inherent in you, but 
they will never come to the surface unless you 
expect them to. 

Train your mind deliberately, day by day, 
to demand of these qualities that they come to 
the top. Expect them to rise to the surface. 
Put yourself into situations where you must 
have them. Then you will see them develop 
over night and come to your rescue. 

The trouble with most of us is that we save 
ourselves from emergencies, we avoid crucial 
situations, we sidestep responsibility, and thus 
keep submerged the greatest powers we have. 

Nobody ever learned to swim on dry land. 
You have got to plunge in order to find your 
powers. 

Nature comes to the aid of him who needs 
her, trusts her and throws himself on her 
mercy. She has no use for cowards. She 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

gives all her prizes to those who plunge in and 
try, — to those who dare. 

History is full of the proof of these things. 
Everyone knows that the Spanish Armada, 
which Philip II fitted out to conquer England, 
was a miserable failure, not because it lacked 
material strength but because its commander 
had no confidence in his ability to win. 

This commander was the Duke of Medina 
Sidonia. He wrote the king, in answer to his 
appointment, saying he knew he would be 
beaten; that he knew nothing of naval mat- 
ters; that he knew none of the officers who 
were to serve under him. 

He concluded by saying that he was always 
seasick on the ocean and that if the king in- 
sisted upon sending him at the head of this 
expedition it would surely fail. 

Philip did insist, in the false belief that the 
physical strength of his fleet could offset the 
fear in its leader. He manned 130 ships with 
more than 30,000 men, and over 2500 guns. 

The expedition was the marvel of the times. 
The English fleet didn't compare with it in 
equipment, ships or men, but the English 
fleet won because it was commanded by Lord 
Howard, who believed in himself. 

Faith in yourself is the supremest factor in 
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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

your life. It will attract people to you ; it will 
influence others favorably; it will draw and 
command the affection, confidence and ad- 
miration of the world. It is a force before 
which the world bows and in return for which 
it bestows its choicest gifts. 

Not only does this faith in yourself impress 
others and powerfully influence them in your 
behalf, but it strengthens and develops you. 
It brings out the best in you. 

Fear of yourself crushes, deadens, de- 
presses. 

Self-confidence is a stimulant. Self-fear is 
a deadly narcotic. You are injecting one or 
the other of these into your consciousness 
every waking moment. 

Get every doubt about your ability out of 
your system. You are not a victim of cir- 
cumstance except as you think so. When 
you think you are, your own fear thought is 
making the circumstances. 

People who go to the top do not stand 
around waiting to see what is going to hap- 
pen. They make it happen. They have a 
conviction of their own ability. 

Look at any famous man or woman and 
you will find every one of them believes in 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

himself. Every one of them has confidence 
in himself, in his power to do. 

Once a colonel came to Napoleon just be- 
fore a battle. "Are we going to win?" asked 
Napoleon. "We will if circumstances per- 
mit," answered the colonel. "Circumstances!" 
exclaimed Napoleon, "I make circumstances!" 

The world might well be divided into two 
classes, — those who let their lives be made by 
circumstances and those who make their own 
circumstances. 

The first step in the mastery of your own 
life is taken when you have fully decided what 
you wish to accomplish. 

Then picture yourself as you will talk, act, 
dress, walk and conduct yourself generally 
when you have accomplished it. 

This is visualization, the second great step 
in the law of self-confidence. Visualization 
deals with action, it makes you the leading 
character in your own drama. It sets the stage 
and gives the other characters their respective 
roles. 

Picture yourself doing what you want to 
do, and because your life follows your 
thoughts, some day you will be doing it. 

If you find it difficult to form these pictures 

of yourself it is probably due to your not hav- 

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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

ing a sufficiently definite idea of what you 
want to do. 

Go back then to the first stage and make 
your decision. From that time on expect 
yourself to accomplish this. 

In every human being there are enormous 
untapped resources, undiscovered possibilities, 
far greater capacities than he has dreamed he 
possessed. Place yourself where they must 
save you, where you must sink or swim, and 
what happens will astound you. 

Deep in the inmost recesses of your soul 
are untouched mines of energy. If you blast 
deep enough you will find them. But the 
only thing that ever goes deep enough to 
bring out the greatest ones is jeopardy. 

The most priceless thing that can ever come 
into a life is that book, that event, that ser- 
mon, that experience, that emergency, that 
catastrophe, — that something which sounds 
the depths of a man's nature and flings wide 
the doors of his own great within. 

It is not the man you are which is most im- 
portant to you, but the man you are capable 
of becoming. Place yourself in the situations 
that will bring out that possible man. 

This best part of you may be submerged 
under all sorts of debris — fear, timidity, doubt, 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

uncertainty and self-consciousness — but it is 
there. You can bring it out and place it at the 
helm of your life if you try. 

You were born to conquer, to play a leading 
part on the world's stage. But you will never 
play it, you will never do anything superb 
until you believe in yourself. 

The story of David and Goliath is not far 
fetched. The pebbles of self-confidence in the 
sling of aggressiveness have enabled many a 
little man to vanquish a giant. 

Show me any great accomplisher and I will 
show you a man of great confidence in him- 
self, in his aim, and in his own ability. If 
there is a link between God and man it must 
be this thing of self-faith. 

Start today toward the realization of the 
things you desire. Look upon them as pos- 
sible of attainment. Make your visualization 
of them concrete, practical, and then believe 
you can get them. 

Many people fail because they look upon 
their ambition, their life's dream, as a fanciful 
fiction. They think of it, but only as some- 
thing which can never be realized. They do 
not take their ambitions seriously. I have 
heard many gifted men and women gently 
ridicule themselves for their ambitions. 

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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 
You have got to believe utterly and ser- 
iously in your ideal before you can ever make 
it real. No matter how unconventional, un- 
usual or impossible seems your ambition, 
don't lose faith in it. The thing you call im- 
possible will be done by someone else tomor- 
row. 

Disraeli, a young English Jew, was sneered 
at one day by a political opponent. "You 
will be sorry for that," he said, "when I am 
Prime Minister of England." That any man 
of his despised race could achieve the highest 
political office at the command of proud Brit- 
ish nation would have been laughed at as the 
impossible. But Disraeli, by his supreme self- 
confidence, did become Prime Minister of 
England. 

If you lack this faith in yourself there is 
one certain way to acquire it. The way is 
to follow the three steps, — suggestion, visual- 
ization, action. 

Remind yourself every hour of the day that 
you are a human being and no human being 
was ever born timid. Visualize yourself in 
the place you wish to be, doing what you wish 
to do, having what you wish to have. Then 
act in accordance with your ideal. 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

It is not difficult to act in accordance with 
your ideal if you faithfully live up to the first 
two stages. Keeping the thought of your am- 
bition before your eyes automatically com- 
pels you to act in harmony with it. When- 
ever you find it difficult to live up to your ex- 
pectations it is because you have not etched 
the picture with sufficient clearness in your 
own mind. 

Let me beg of you not to yield to the temp- 
tation to pass lightly or doubtingly over these 
great truths. If you do you are cheating your- 
self. There is no irony comparable to that 
of a man doubting his own divinity. One of 
the greatest difficulties in the world is to get 
people to realize their own bigness. They are 
their own jailers. They keep themselves in 
prison. 

Perhaps it will help you to see that these 
statements are not mere vaporings of an op- 
timist, if I quote to you something America's 
greatest psychological thinker, Professor Wil- 
liam James of Harvard, once said: "Each of 
us," he declared, "has resources of which he 
does not dream. If we could only turn an 
X-ray on ourselves most of us would find 
powers in the great within of us which may 
not have gotten even to the germinating stage. 

144 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

There is probably not a living being who 
would not be amazed if he could see all of 
the potentialities within himself. If he could 
he would probably say, These remarkable 
qualities belong to someone who has achieved, 
not to an unknown person like me. 9 " 

The real problem is to know how to get at 
these gold mines within yourself. You can 
solve that problem if you will follow the in- 
structions in this lesson. 

First of all, refuse to recall the failures you 
have made in the past. Whenever the mem- 
ory of yourself in a humiliated, dejected state 
comes to you say to yourself, 'That is gone. 
I shall never appear that way again/' Keep 
your mind on the pleasant memories if you 
must reminisce. 

But if you really want to accomplish some- 
thing great remember this : memories, whether 
pleasant or unpleasant, are thieves of the 
mind. The past can never be lived again. 
The future is what counts. Every thought 
you give to the past steals the mental energy 
you should be devoting to the future. 

Let me tell you at this point about your 
chief handicap when you are attempting to 
act self -confidently. It is this: you do not 
act as you really feel. If you would conquer 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

self-consciousness, overcome timidity and ac- 
quire perfect self-confidence, never attempt 
to say things or do things in which you are 
not absolutely sincere. In other words, be 
yourself. 

Most self -consciousness comes from the at- 
tempt to make people believe you feel or think 
something you do not. 

I do not mean by this that you are to be 
blunt, discourteous, or selfish, — quite the re- 
verse. I mean that if you really want to "put 
yourself over," be sure it is yourself and not 
someone else you try to put over. 

Don't assume unnatural accents. For in- 
stance: If you are a Westerner in the East, 
don't try to copy their broad A's or slight your 
R's. You may feel conspicuous at first, but 
people want you to be natural, not necessarily 
like themselves. In fact, a secret contempt, 
more or less subconscious, is aroused by the 
person who tries to imitate others. 

Imitation is undesirable for many reasons, 

but chiefly because it is always detected. Any 

attempt on your part to copy the mannerisms, 

poses, or attitudes of others is sure to make 

you self -conscious, and this self -consciousness 

makes you much more conspicuous than your 

own would. 

146 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

The very first element of true self-confi- 
dence is sincerity. 

The second is spontaneity. No one cares 
to hear what you say if they imagine you do 
not believe it yourself, but the whole world 
will listen when you say what you earnestly 
believe. Nothing can be so foolish, so ridicu- 
lous, that you cannot get a hearing for it pro- 
vided you believe in it with your whole heart. 

The next time you meet anybody, the next 
time you face any situation, act out your real 
self. If you will do this you will never ap- 
pear self-conscious, for your real self is not 
self-conscious. It is self-confident. 

Your self -consciousness is the result of the 
veneer which has been laid over your real self 
by outside influence. 

Mingle as much as possible with other peo- 
ple. Seek opportunities for meeting new peo- 
ple, and when invitations are extended to you 
by your friends, accept them. Force yourself 
to say you will come. Then that promise will 
help you to silence your weaker self when, as 
usual, it comes whispering to you not to go. 

I know a young woman not at all indus- 
trious who never feels the urge to work until 
a social engagement is demanded of her. She 
usually refuses, declaring she has so much to 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

do she doesn't see how she can arrange it. 
If by any chance she is lured into accepting 
she almost invariably cancels the engagement 
later, describing at length the pressing duty 
which has intervened. 

Now this young woman imagines she is 
telling the truth, but her friends know the real 
reason is her timidity. She recoils from con- 
tact with others. She shrinks before even her 
best friends. She withdraws into herself and 
stays there, with the result that she is becom- 
ing more and more self-conscious. That self- 
consciousness is ruining her life. 

You must not only mingle with people 
when they invite you, you must invite them 
occasionally, not for etiquette's sake, but be- 
cause taking the lead will force you to take 
responsibility and this will bring out your in- 
itiative. After all, it is up to you to do your 
share in the world. 

Timid people are constantly feeling neg- 
lected, humiliated and desolate. They usually 
repel advances, yet are hurt when the ad- 
vances are not continued. The sensitiveness 
which accentuated their timidity in the first 
place makes them poignantly aware whenever 
they are left out. But this is the inevitable 
result of timidity. 

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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 
If you want to be sought after, loved and 
admired, remember you must "do your bit." 
The world doesn't owe you anything except 
what you earn. If you contribute nothing to 
the happiness, progress and inspiration of 
others, after a while no one will contribute 
these things to you. 

Right here I come to what I believe is the 
highest, and to many the most impelling, mo- 
tive for conquering timidity, — the desire to 
help humanity. Most timid people, as I have 
said before, are more mental, more sensitive, 
more sympathetic on the whole, than others. 
These qualities make the retiring man a lover 
of mankind, a sympathizer with the woes, 
hardships and tragedies of his fellowmen. He 
often longs to serve mankind, to be an in- 
spiration to the world. 

But the timid man never inspired anybody. 
In the presence of timidity we are always de- 
pressed. The timid man cannot lead. He 
cannot even lift because his timidity makes us 
doubt his strength. The world's homage, the 
world's salvation are in the hands of the 
strong, the courageous, — the people of sub- 
lime self-confidence. If your own salvation 
is not sufficient incentive to induce you to fol- 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
low the other rules laid down in this lesson, 
perhaps the desire to help humanity can. 

Self-confidence does not mean that a man 
should be boisterous, bold or scatter things 
right and left like a bull in a china shop. He 
must never intimidate others. It means the 
frank, democratic, sincere expression of him- 
self. It means showing the world that he is 
a human being, not an excuse. 

God made you. He made you to stand up 
straight, to look the whole world in the eye, 
to be a credit to that force which created you. 
Some animals walk on all fours, but for sev- 
eral million years now, man has been walking 
on his two hind legs. Don't let those millions 
of years of evolution be lost on you. Don't 
cringe. Don't crawl. Don't apologize. Don't 
take a back seat. Don't make excuses. Don't 
whine. Don't cower. And if you do any of 
these things here is another don't: Don't 
justify yourself with any self-righteous ex- 
cuses. If you are timid it is not for any of 
the reasons you have been giving yourself. 
It is because you are scared. 

Fear is at the bottom of all timidity. If 
you have been salving your sore of self -con- 
sciousness with the idea that humility is right- 

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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

eous, start your emancipation today by getting 
honest with yourself. 

Humility is pride under a cloak. Most of 
the people who prate against pride are secretly 
proud of their humility. They make a virtue 
of their vice and it is the worst vice in the 
world — fear. 

God must love courage or he would not 
give His richest rewards for it. Certain it is 
that the courageous man brings God to your 
mind, expresses godliness and reassures you 
of your own divinity. 

'The survival of the fittest" seems to be 
God's law. It is no accident that the fearsome, 
retiring, self-effacing, self-depreciatory fail to 
win even the love that insures reproduction. 
It is no accident that everything, from a stalk 
of wheat to a human being, grows with its 
head up, not down. 

Whenever you meet anyone, let him see 
by your tone, the poise of your body, the 
expression of your eye, the enthusiasm of 
your words and the earnestness of your hand- 
shake that you are no worm of the dust. Be 
sure at the same time to show him that he too 
is one of God's creatures. 

Never take another man's share. Never 
cheat. Never impose. These things are done 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

by the man who does not trust himself in the 
open, who doubts his ability to win under the 
rules of the game, and are therefore not the 
earmarks of the courageous, but the brands 
of the coward. 

Give every man his chance. Give every 
man his due. Give every man a boost. Give 
every man tolerance, — even the timid man. 
But never let any other man take your chance. 
Never infringe on his territory, but never let 
him infringe on yours. Let him see that you 
are fair and square but not "easy." Let him 
see that you will never encroach on him and 
that he better not try to encroach on you. 

I will illustrate what I mean by two pic- 
tures, one concerning the insignificant things 
of life and the other the most vital. 

The first one is a moving picture of a street 
car. A group of people are waiting for it. 
The first one in line is a timid woman. Every- 
one knows she was the first one there. She 
knows it herself better than they do, but be- 
cause of habit she steps back and lets every 
one else in ahead of her. The last seat is 
taken just as she gets inside and she hangs to 
a strap. 

The other is a picture of a home where 
the parents are always taking a back seat for 

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HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 
their children, always giving up, always sac- 
rificing, always going without necessities that 
they may furnish their children with luxuries. 

As those children begin to grow up, father 
and mother begin to dwindle in their estima- 
tion because they wouldn't take the time, the 
clothes or the energy away from their children 
to cultivate friends. Father and mother sel- 
dom go out. 

Now people who do not go out among 
others frequently fall behind the times. Father 
and mother realize they are behind the times 
and hesitate to express opinions to these pre- 
cocious young men and women of theirs. In 
a little while father and mother are unmistak- 
ably timid before their own children. Their 
admonitions, advice and suggestions have lit- 
tle weight. The children go their respective 
ways. The morale of the home is broken, as 
well as the lives of the parents. 

These are two widely different pictures. 
One deals with the little things and the other 
with the biggest things in human life. The 
woman who lets everyone else have her place 
on the street car, and the parents, did the same 
thing, — they gave the chance which rightfully 
belonged to themselves to those to whom it 

153 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

did not belong, who could not profit by it, and 
who despised them for doing it. 

In every event of your life, from the small- 
est thing to the greatest, hold your own. 
Don't push in ahead of the other fellow. Take 
your place in line; don't take the other fel- 
low's; but don't let even your children take 
yours. 

Developing self-confidence is not a difficult 
task, but it does require patience and intelli- 
gent efforts. Don't hurry. Don't be anxious. 
Don't strain. Don't attempt to change your- 
self overnight. Don't be like the man who 
tried to jump over the hill. He went a long 
way back and ran so hard that when he got to 
the hill he was obliged to lie down and rest. 

Don't lose time or discourage yourself by 
being over-strenuous in following the rules of 
this lesson. Begin at the bottom and walk 
over the hill. 

Do something each day in accordance with 
the rules of this lesson. Start with the easy 
things and work up to those that are hardest. 

Let your self-respect show in your eyes, in 
the triumphant attitude toward every situa- 
tion and every individual. 

Stop thinking of yourself as a nobody, a 
weakling and a failure. Whenever this picture 

154 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

comes into your mind, substitute for it the 
picture of yourself as you long to be. Hold 
it there. Don't let anything or anybody make 
you change the slide, and some day you will 
be that person. Some day that picture will 
come true. 

Failure is like worry, — a bully. The mo- 
ment you show you are not afraid of Failure, 
that instant failure becomes afraid of you. 
He is a bluff, a phantom created by your 
own imagination. 

No matter how many times you have gone 
down to defeat; no matter how many times 
you have been conquered, lashed by humilia- 
tion ; no matter how these things have affected 
peoples' confidence in you, take a new grip on 
yourself, give yourself a chance and in six 
months you will have reversed their opinion 
of you. 

As a matter of fact, other people are not as 
conscious of you and your mistakes as you 
imagine. They are busy with their own trou- 
bles. They are not thinking of you at all, they 
are wondering what you think about them. 

If you have lost your money, that means 
that you have really only lost time. You have 
gained experience which should make your 

155 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

time from now on worth double. You have 
not lost your life or your manhood. Every- 
thing else can be retrieved. 

Already you are learning to think right. 
When you think right you can fight right, and 
the man who can fight right wins. Don't 
yearn for strength, earn it. 

The mind is the instrument with which you 
accomplish any purpose. If you will keep 
the picture of yourself as a conqueror before 
your mind, the picture of yourself as a timid 
man cannot get in. To do this will not be 
easy the first day, but it will be easier the 
second, and after you have practiced it a week 
you will be surprised at the ease with which 
you conquer in the little things. 

I once heard a man, whose life had been a 
failure, boasting of the fact that he had never 
fooled himself by building castles in the air. 
As he was a man of real ability, I had some- 
times wondered why he had failed, but I did 
not wonder after that remark. Every man 
who ever achieved anything did just what I 
am asking you to do, — built his castles in the 
air first and then put foundations under them. 

Your belief in yourself tells your story, pre- 
dicts it years in advance, predicts it so clearly 

156 



HOW TO BE SELF-CONFIDENT 

that every psychologist can tell about where 
you will land with any given mental attitude. 

The men and armies that triumphed against 
great odds have always been found to have 
had confidence in themselves. 

When Henry Ward Beecher went to Eng- 
land he once rose to speak before a large meet- 
ing which was so opposed to him that it 
hooted, hissed and yelled. But it did not 
down Beecher. He looked that great audience 
straight in the eye, not with pugnacity nor de- 
fiance, but utter self-confidence. He literally 
cowed it into subjection. Then he proceeded 
to preach for two hours. He was one man. 
He faced thousands of other men and their 
hostility, and won. 

Clemenceau of France, Gladstone of Eng- 
land, Wilson, Roosevelt and Bryan of our 
own country illustrate the power of self-con- 
fidence. 

It was not the strength of the French that 
stopped the Germans at Verdun, — it was the 
might of mind. For days before, the gen- 
erals sent the affirmation, "They shall not 
pass" down the line, asking each man to pass 
it to the next and to repeat it every moment 
until the battle should come. 

157 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

That conviction, flaming in the minds of 
the French, gave to them, through the law 
whose mysteries we have not solved, the 
power that brought victory. 

It is not necessary to solve the mysteries of 
this great law in order to use it, any more than 
it is necessary for you to understand engineer- 
ing in order to drive you own car. 

We are discussing practical psychology. I 
do not pretend to explain how affirmation and 
visualization give you the power to do what 
you affirm. I only know they do. I do not 
know why this law works nor just how it 
works, — and no one else knows. I only know 
it works. I want you to put it to work in 
your own life. Put it to the test. Try out 
what I have taught you in this lesson. It will 
remake your life. 



158 




CHAPTER IV 
HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

4 'The minute a man ceases to grow, no mat- 
ter what his years, that minute he begins to be 
old." 

WILLIAM JAMES. 

N the past people went to two ex- 
tremes in their ideas concerning the 
prolongation of youth. There 
were those who foolishly believed 
in "charms" and miracles for restoring lost 
youth. As children we all learned in our his- 
tories of the expedition of Ponce de Leon, who 
claimed to have discovered the "Fountain of 
Eternal Youth" on the Western hemisphere, 
and of the pilgrimages of those who believed 
him. To the other extreme have been those 
who took it for granted that the prolongation 
of youth or youthfulness beyond a certain ar- 
bitrary point was impossible. Neither of these 
extremes was right. 

Today all thinking people recognize the pos- 
sibility of extending the period of youthful- 
ness far into the years of later life, and the 

159 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
methods for doing so are in practice. It is 
these means and methods which I am going to 
give you in this lesson. 

If the idea of extending life and prolonging 
youth seems fantastical to you, turn to the 
laws of nature, to your biology. There you 
will find that in all mammals except man the 
period of life is five times the period of 
growth. A dog gets its full growth in two 
years and lives ten; a horse in five years and 
lives twenty-five. Man, who does not attain 
his full physical stature until twenty and his 
complete physical development not until 
twenty-five, should therefore live from one 
hundred to one hundred and twenty-five years, 
normally. 

One of the greatest tragedies in life is that 
just as we learn how to live we die. Just as 
we have learned the value of life it is taken 
away. Just when the great men and women 
have proven their right to lead us and gained 
our confidence, they pass on, and each gen- 
eration makes all over again most of the mis- 
takes of previous generations. 

All great men and women leave their work 
unfinished. Susan B. Anthony, the great 
founder of the Woman's Suffrage movement 

160 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 
in America, said on her death bed at eighty- 
six, "I have done so little." 

The gain to the world when we learn how 
to keep youth cannot be measured. Even 
these great people who did so much for us 
could have accomplished more had they real- 
ized the possibility of extending the period of 
their service. 

That it is possible to do this has been 
proved. Titian painted up to the time of his 
death at ninety-nine. LaPlace, the astron- 
omer, made one of the greatest discoveries 
just before his death, at eighty-eight. Glad- 
stone was Prime Minister of England at eighty- 
three, and the year before mastered a new 
language. Rodin, the greatest sculptor of 
modern times, died at seventy-seven, and pro- 
duced some of his greatest masterpieces in the 
last months of his life. William Dean How- 
ells, who is nearing the ninety-year mark, has 
not only a young body but a mind so young 
that he is still in charge of a department, "The 
Easy Chair," in one of America's leading mag- 
azines. Ella Wheeler Wilcox and Amelia E. 
Barr wrote brilliantly up to their last days, 
though advanced in years far beyond the sup- 
posed "limit" of three score and ten. Sarah 

161 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Bernhardt, at 76, still holds not only the stage, 
but the laurels as the world's greatest actress. 

All of these obeyed, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, most of the laws laid down in this 
lesson. If you will obey them you can add 
from five to fifty years to your life. 

Before I tell you these rules let us see what 
it is that makes people old. The processes 
are both mental and physical as are all pro- 
cesses of thinking creatures. 

The mistakes people make concerning their 
bodies are manifold. If you want to keep 
your body young, obey the rules of Chapter I, 
this volume. 

In this lesson I shall explain the part that 
the mind plays in the ageing of an individual. 
In this more than anything we have discussed 
up to this time the subconscious plays a lead- 
ing part. 

As we have already seen, the 90 per cent 
of the mind which is subconscious, forms the 
mainspring of our conduct. You think and 
act, not in accordance with your reason, as 
you have fondly supposed, but more or less 
automatically in response to the habits of this 
submerged nine-tenths. This may be likened 
to the cargo of an ocean liner which lies be- 

162 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

neath the surface. The most important part 
of you is under the surface. The direction in 
which you go, the port at which you arrive, 
depends on how the machinery works down 
there in the hull. 

As we have already found, the subcon- 
scious is made largely by suggestion. It takes 
on its tendencies from suggestion, and in ac- 
cordance with this nature directs your life. 

How does this affect youthfulness? From 
early babyhood we are taught that we will 
grow old at a certain time. We are informed 
when we ask why other people have gray hair, 
stooped shoulders and wrinkles, that these 
things are the result of age. When we ask 
what is meant by age we are told that all 
people at forty or so begin to look like that. 
We are told that when we have lived forty 
years or more we too will begin to look like 
that. The certainty of it sinks into our minds, 
and from that day we invite, expect and pre- 
pare for old age. 

We think of the years up to forty as the 
only years in which we can accomplish. We 
think of everything after that as a general 
fading-out. We consider ourselves of middle 
age at fifty, and expect nothing of ourselves 
after sixty. The parents who have property 

163 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

decide early in life how they are going to 
divide it among their children. They get ready 
to relinquish it. Father, who is as good a man 
as any of his sons, divides the farm or the 
business; mother passes her pretty things, — 
the real lace, her jewelry and other treas- 
ures, — on to her daughters, saying, "I shall 
not need them any more. I am getting too old 
for them. I will not live to wear them out." 
They make all preparations save those of the 
undertaker, for laying themselves on the shelf. 

If they do not have property they wonder 
which of their children they will inflict them- 
selves upon when they are old. 

They have gone along to a certain age — 
the age when people are supposed to grow 
old — and they think it is time to droop, time to 
sag, time to begin the process of decay. They 
resign themselves to it, talk about it, think 
about it, write to their friends about it, and 
look for it in others. 

The first question a woman usually asks of 
another woman after she passes her thirtieth 
milestone is, "Don't you think I am looking 
older? Tell me honestly, now!" Men don't 
ask it of their friends, but they would if they 
dared. Pretty soon they walk, talk, sag, droop 
and act like old men and old women. The 

164 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

man who walks, talks, sags and thinks like an 
old man is soon in very truth an old man. 

They keep themselves reminded of their ad- 
vancing years. They are conscious every mo- 
ment of their age. They call attention to the 
fact that they are getting old by having birth- 
day parties which remind not only them- 
selves, but all others of "how time is flying." 

Father watches the mirror for baldness and 
mother for double chins. They say they must 
not spend this or that because they are going 
to need it for their "old age." They do not 
attempt new projects because they fear they 
will not be able to finish them. 

This feeling that one's time is limited is re- 
sponsible for the loss to the world of many 
great achievements. 

A psychologist whose knowledge and ac- 
curacy could not be doubted, once said, "The 
consciousness of the passage of time has a 
great influence in printing wrinkles in our 
faces and graying our hairs/ 9 

In substantiation of it he told a story, for 
whose authenticity I cannot vouch, but which 
I will ask you to accept for the grain of truth 
which it contains. 

The story goes that a beautiful girl of 
twenty years was engaged to be married. At 

165 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

the hour for which her wedding had been set 
and just as she was dressed for the ceremony, 
word was brought that her fiancee had been 
killed. 

The shock robbed her of her reason. She 
never regained it, though she lived to be 81 
years old. 

Every day of her life thereafter she dressed 
herself in her trousseau at the wedding hour 
and waited for her bridegroom. 

The wedding gown turned yellow with age. 
The veil became tattered shreds, but the face 
of the woman remained that of a twenty-year- 
old girl. Her hair did not turn gray. The 
plumpness of her cheeks was but slightly 
diminished and her form was as girlish as it 
had been sixty years before. 

The psychologist who vouched for the story 
declared he believed the retention of her youth 
was due to the fact that she had no conscious- 
ness of the passage of time. To her she was 
always twenty years old. Every day was her 
wedding day. 

This story may or may not be true, but 
there is a lesson in it nevertheless. 

If you want to know whether or not you 
are making yourself old ahead of your time 
try these tests on yourself: 

166 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

Are you living in the past? Do you think 
of the times that are gone as the best times? 
Do you live over the triumphs and successes 
of the past? Do you give more thought to re- 
membering the successes of yesterday than to 
planning successes for the future? 

Are you beginning to tell fibs about your 
age? Are you habitually comparing yourself 
with younger people, regretting that you have 
lost your youthful charms? 

Are you beginning to look for ill health? 
Are you keeping an eagle eye out for the 
break in your physical condition? 

Are you always wishing you could start 
over with the knowledge of today? Are 
you constantly reminding yourself that there 
would be some chance for you if you could 
start all over five, ten or twenty years back, 
and are you taking it for granted that because 
you can't do this you cannot amount to any- 
thing? Do you dislike to see the seasons roll 
around because each one ticks off a segment 
of your life? 

Do you spend time regretting, hating, envy- 
ing other people? Are you in the habit of ex- 
cusing yourself for not accomplishing as much 
as other people on the ground that you are 
older than they? 

167 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Are you getting careless about your per- 
sonal appearance, — the way you do your hair, 
the fit of your clothes, — and slackening a bit 
in your walk? Do you say, just because a 
garment is of light color, "Oh, that is too 
young for me"? 

If you are doing these things you are be- 
ginning to slide down the grade to old age. 

If you are getting habitual about anything, 
if you are getting "set" in your ways, less 
open minded, — if you find it hard to laugh at 
things that are really funny, you are getting 
old. 

If you are doing things just as you have 
done them for years in spite of all our modern 
inventions and better methods, you are get- 
ting old. 

If you dislike to make new friends, you are 
getting old. 

If you think you have to do anything just 
because you always have done it, you are get- 
ting old. If you can't have your plans upset 
without feeling that the world is in a jumble, 
you are getting old. If you can only do cer- 
tain things on certain days, or under certain 
conditions, you are getting old. 

If you are voting the same old ticket your 
father voted without knowing why, you are 

168 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

getting old. If you are voting the Republican 
ticket because you didn't approve of Bryan's 
16 to 1 ideas, you are getting old. If you 
are voting the Democratic ticket for no other 
reason that that you happened to believe in 
the free coinage of silver, you are equally out 
of date. If you call all Socialists "anarchists," 
and all radicals "alien enemies/ ' you are forty 
years behind on the first conviction and al- 
ready two years behind on the second. Catch 
up with the procession! 

If you are still going every Sunday to the 
same old church for the same old reasons that 
led you to affiliate with it thirty years ago, 
without investigating once in a while whether 
or not it is meeting the soul-needs of the peo- 
ple of today, you are getting old. 

If you can't understand why anybody else 
should belong to a different church or a differ- 
ent party from yours, you are getting old. 

If you can't get enthusiastic about anything 
to the point where you are just a little bit 
crazy, you are getting old. If you haven't had 
a real thrill over something within the last 
six months, if you haven't been thoroughly 
aroused for something, against something, by 
something or despite something, you are get- 
ting old. 

169 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

If you haven't changed your mind about 
some fairly big world question during the last 
four history-making years, you are getting old. 

If you haven't laughed till the tears came to 
your eyes several times in the last year, you 
are getting old. If you have not felt those 
same tears spring to your eyes lately at the 
sight of suffering, you are getting old. 

If your children make engagements to go 
out in the evening saying, "I'll get mother to 
come over and take care of the babies," you 
are getting old. 

If you turn up your nose at psychology; if 
you deplore the movies; if you declare that 
the successful acting of tragedy died with 
Mansfield and comedy with Nat Goodwin, 
you are getting old. 

And here is the last and perhaps the cru- 
cial test: Do you look with impatience, sar- 
casm or superiority on the activities, foibles 
and madnesses of young people? If you take 
a "holier than thou" attitude whenever you 
see two young things spooning in the park 
and mutter, "There's one born every minute," 
you are getting old and you are getting there 
fast, and incidentally hastening the minute 
when your place will be taken by one of them. 

170 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 
But take this consolation, — you are not hope- 
less. 

The ways to stay young are simple ways, — 
ways so simple that we are inclined to under- 
estimate them. 

The ways for staying young are Nature's 
ways and therefore normal and easy of com- 
prehension. But man has always, in seeking 
the solution to a vital problem, looked afar off 
when the real answer usually lies at his very 
feet. 

It is like the story of the man who wan- 
dered around the world in search of a four- 
leaf clover and who, when he came home to 
die, discovered one growing at his own door- 
step. * ^>*&\\ U 

First of all, if you would stay young, lure 
out, reason out or blast out of your subcon- 
scious mind the notion that you have just 
naturally got to wither and die when you 
have lived a certain number of years on this 
earth. 

Do you know that at no time are you more 
than two years old? Not a cell in your body 
is two years old. The body and the brain are 
in a constant state of building up and tearing 
down, of creating and casting off cells, and 
the oldest cell in your body at this moment 

171 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

has not been there more than 18 months. To- 
day you do not have in your lungs one cell 
that was there four months ago. 

People get old because they imagine the ma- 
terial of which they are made gets old like 
cloth. The difference between you and the 
piece of cloth is that you are constantly chang- 
ing. The stuff you are made of is alive. 
Twenty million red globules are manufactured 
in your blood every time you breathe. 

The new cells, as they ripen, take on the 
shape and attitude of those they are succeed- 
ing, and each is so deeply impressed by the 
subconscious with the feeling of age that to 
all outward appearances it is an old cell. 

If this sounds unscientific let me refer you 
to an even more advanced statement in de- 
fense of it by the most scientific man of our 
time, — Thomas A. Edison. This is Mr. Edi- 
son's theory and he carries it so far as to de- 
clare "Every cell in us thinks." 

In the place of your old delusion that you 
must die after a certain number of years, 
charge your subconscious with the realization 
of the ever-changing materials of which your 
body and brain are made. 

I do not say that this will enable you to live 
forever, but I do know that it will tend to 

172 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

make every cell take on the youth-attitude in- 
stead of the age-attitude. I do know that 
those men and women who have lived longest 
all had this attitude of mind. 

Let yourself realize that you are entitled, 
according to the laws of biology, to from one 
hundred to one hundred and twenty-five years 
of life the same as all other mammals. 

Stop looking for the signs of age. We al- 
ways find what we look for. 

Stop worrying about getting old. As we 
found in a previous lesson, worry tends to 
bring about what you worry about. It is more 
true in connection with old age than almost 
any other one thing, for the reason that all 
worry brings wrinkles, negative processes and 
ill health. Every fear thought tears down tis- 
sue and that dead tissue becomes debris. Also, 
all worry thoughts slow up the improving 
processes to such an extent that you never 
quite catch up again. 

But worry about old age is more disastrous 
in bringing old age than any other worry for 
the scientific reason which I have noted before 
and which is known to all physiologists and 
psychologists, — that every thought has its cor- 
responding muscular mechanism. That mech- 
anism reacts with every thought. 

173 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Whenever you worry about wrinkles, 
wrinkles respond. Whenever you are sad, the 
corners of your mouth go down. When you 
are happy those same corners turn up. Keep 
the corners turned up. Read Irvin Cobb, Ring 
Lardner, Alice Duer Miller, Walt Mason, 
George Patullo, Octavus Roy Cohen, and oc- 
casionally browse through Twain's "Innocents 
Abroad." 

Read two newspapers. If you have long 
been a subscriber to the most conservative 
sheet in your neck of the woods, give yourself 
a chance to know the other side by taking a 
radical one. The same holds good if the most 
radical paper is all you have been seeing for 
the last five years. 

Unlock your mind. No matter how rusty 
the key is it will work, for remember, you are 
not quite dead. 

In addition to these, take the best maga- 
zines. If you feel you can't afford to, cut 
down on your food and save the money that 
way. Inasmuch as the chances are that you 
are eating twice the amount you ought to for 
longevity, you will be killing two birds with 
one stone. 

Don't talk of the past. Talk of the future. 
Think of the future. Work for the future. 

174 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 
Believe there is a future for you. You are 
justified in believing this because believing it 
will make you act in such a way as to live 
longer and make a future for yourself. 

Never let anyone have another birthday 
party for you. If that is the best hint you can 
think of for getting presents out of your 
friends, let the presents go. 

Stop telling your age. Forget right now 
how old you are and never allow yourself to 
think of it again. Refuse to talk age or let 
others talk it to you. 

Don't let your children think you have so 
little to do in your own life that you can be 
called upon at any time to act as nursemaid to 
the grand-children. Get some engagements of 
your own. Get some evening engagements. 

Do not begin to divide your property. Make 
a will if you have any property and then for- 
get it. 

Don't dress in dull colors and things be- 
speaking age. The reason for this is that we 
are all powerfully influenced by our garments. 
We always tend to act the role for which we 
are dressed. We play the part that goes with 
the costume. If you do not believe it, recall 
that time you went to the masquerade as 

175 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

"Cap-and-Bells," "The Spanish Dancer," "Me- 
phisto" or "The Colonial Maiden," Will you 
ever forget how you felt yourself the char- 
acter for which you were dressed? 

Remember this in selecting clothes: I do 
not recommend that every woman, regardless 
of her age or complexion, wear cerise, tur- 
quoise blue or paddy green. But no woman, 
however old, should wear dark colors exclu- 
sively. At ninety pastel shades, lavenders, 
palest pinks, yellows and white are more be- 
coming than any somber shade. There are 
the colors of youth, of spring, of freshness. 
In them you feel younger, and when you feel 
younger you are younger. When you are in 
drab colors you feel drab and act drab. 

Take pains with your hair. If you are a 
man don't get careless about the crease in 
your trousers. If you are a woman, guard 
against that dumpy, matronly figure. 

Regardless of sex inquire into your own 
mind, find out why you believe as you do on 
the questions of the day. If there are big, 
vital questions concerning which you have no 
opinion whatever, investigate the merits and 
get one. 

Take an interest not only in your own chil- 
dren, but in other young peoples' children. 

176 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

Cultivate their friendship. This does not 
mean being kittenish, — it means sympathizing 
with their viewpoints, hopes and ambitions. 

Attempt new things with the determination 
that you are going to win, and you will be sur- 
prised to see how easily they can be accom- 
plished. 

Start new projects with the firm conviction 
that even though they take ten or twenty 
years you will live to finish them. Never say, 
"It is too late for me to start this or that." 
Never say, "If I could have done that five 
years or ten years ago that would have been 
different, but it is too late now." 

Stop bemoaning the fact that you can't be- 
gin all over at the beginning. You can do 
that very thing if you will start today. The 
past years will merely stand you in hand with 
their harvests of experience. 

Refuse to look for or expect the "break- 
downs" other people have. Stop turning the 
microscope of your mind inward whenever 
you have a stitch in your side, a twinge in a 
muscle or a slight dizziness. 

Never think of yourself as old. If you are 
unmarried find some one with whom you can 
fall in love. Whether they reciprocate or not, 
it will stir up your liver and do you an endless 

177 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

amount of good. If you are married, fall in 
love with your own partner again. 

Give yourselves some vacations. Take 
some trips, if only in the Ford, away from 
everybody who knows you, your past, your 
age and your ailments. Make new friends and 
cultivate them. 

Try to live in harmony with all Nature, 
from the elimination of meat in your diet to 
a sympathy with the first meadow lark you 
hear in the spring. In other words, keep each 
of those 26 trillions of cells thoroughly alive. 

Make up your mind to keep the undertaker 
waiting just as long as possible. 

Keep abreast of the movements in your 
community, state and nation. Know some- 
thing of what is going on everywhere, from 
the little house next door to the Russian Revo- 
lutions. 

Get out of yourself. All those who have 
lived to a great age were unselfish, outgiving 
natures who were interested in others. 

I asked Mary C. C. Bradford, when she was 
president of the National Education Associa- 
tion, how she kept, through her strenuous pro- 
fessional activities, her buoyant youthfulness. 
"By keeping alive my interest in all big 

178 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

things/' she said. "What one thing would 
you say was most important to one who de- 
sired to perpetuate his youth ?" I asked. 'To 
participate in as many worth-while public ac- 
tivities as possible/' she answered. 

As is well known, any machine disinte- 
grates with idleness. The old saying that 
"Rest is rust" is as true of the human machine 
as any other. 

A perpetual renewing process is always 
going on within you. Physical and mental 
activities speed up this process. 

There are four mental states which produce 
age, — the serious attitude, the depressed atti- 
tude, the superficial attitude and the excited 
attitude. 

Just as depression slows down the renew- 
ing processes to the point where debris piles 
up, so excitement speeds up those processes 
till the belts fly off the wheels. 

The superficial or frivolous attitude, if car- 
ried to an extreme, means that no matter how 
long you live you are never going to grow up. 
On the other hand, the attitude of taking life 
too seriously makes you "a little old man" or 
"a little old woman" from childhood. 

The cure for these age-producing attitudes 
179 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

is poise, — self-control Let yourself feel deep- 
ly, determine to live fully, but control your- 
self. Moderation in all things has been the 
rule ©f all who achieved long life. 

Treasure your vitality. It is the secret of 
youth. Avoid everything that could dissipate 
it, — over-eating, under-nourishment, idleness, 
too hard work, extremes of any kind. 

"If youth could be retained, why is it," you 
ask, "that we have not been taught these 
things before?" The answer is simple. We 
are never taught the most vital and necessary 
truths of life. We are taught our ABC's 
when we ought to be finding out about food 
values. We are taught algebra, calculus and 
other higher forms of mathematics which we 
never use, and are left in ignorance of the 
body's effect on the mind and the mind's effect 
on the body. We are taught languages though 
we may never get out of our own home town. 
We are taught how to conjugate verbs, and 
to differentiate between the penult and the 
ante-penult, but are kept in the dark as to the 
deepest desires of our natures, — the sex in- 
stinct, the craving for a mate, and love. We 
are taught everything except what we need to 
know. Everything that is impracticable, theo- 
retical and ethereal is put into the curriculum. 

180 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

The things we need to know to save us from 
terrors, tragedy, shame and failure are left 
out. 

Every human being longs to stay young. 
Yet the simple, certain rules by which he 
could do so are never given to him. 

The world was a long time in formulating 
these rules because the law by which youth 
can be perpetuated is both physical and meta- 
physical. 

Many things stay young. Why not you? 

Last summer I saw in the Redwood forests 
of California thousands of trees that had stood 
there since before Christ, — trees that had seen 
the seasons come and go before Nero was 
born, that had waved their branches toward 
the Golden Gate before Cleopatra's time. 

Is it unreasonable, in the face of such facts, 
to anticipate the time when man, the highest 
thinking creature, shall control to a great ex- 
tent the length of his own existence? 

The average person who breathes deeply of 
fresh air gets three new pairs of lungs every 
year. A stomach that is not overloaded nor 
abused renews itself at least twice a year. 
This is true of every other abdominal organ. 

The skin is completely renewed every 
181 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

month, the heart, brain and nervous systems 
every ninety days. 

When the law of perpetual renewal is not 
violated, when we think right, expect youth 
and live up to the laws of health, there is no 
knowing to what length man may not perpet- 
uate his youth. 

The feeling that we are growing old comes 
from the belief that we have that much less 
time in which to live, whereas science has 
proven that the years do not produce age. 
The consciousness of age is therefore nothing 
more or less than a consciousness of the pass- 
ing of time. 

Conditions which have produced age are 
abnormal instead of natural, and can only be 
removed by the development of a new con- 
sciousness. 

This new consciousness must be based upon 
the realization of what is really true in nature 
and its processes in the human system. 

The most important of these are the proc- 
esses of perpetual renewal and of present cre- 
ation. The first rebuilds the entire human sys- 
tem during every ten or eleven months, thus 
keeping the body physically young. The sec- 
ond process creates in the system all those con- 
ditions of which the mind is conscious. When 

182 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 
your mind is conscious of this second process 
you know that there is no other time in na- 
ture but the now. To live absolutely in the 
now is to be conscious only of what is true in 
the now, and it is true that every cell in man 
is momentarily being recreated. 

By living in the belief that we are growing 
older every year, man has given a standing 
order to his subconscious to keep him re- 
minded of his advancing years, to make him 
look older and feel older every year. Every 
person is doing this through the force of habit 
— race habit. He has been training his sub- 
conscious mind toward producing old age. 

The entire universe is constantly renewing 
itself. Nothing is fixed, nothing is the same 
today that it was yesterday. All is change, 
and the purpose of this change is to make all 
things new at all times. 

Every force in nature is working to counter- 
act old age. Every movement of every muscle 
has youth and progress in view. 

You must train your mind to perpetually 
renew itself. This may be promoted by train- 
ing every process of thinking to form new 
thought, better thought, greater thought about 
everything* 

183 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

That is why I urge you to keep up with 
the times. Today's thought on any subject 
should he new as compared to the thought of 
yesterday. Every idea should be an improve- 
ment upon the corresponding idea of last 
week. Every conception formed by youi 
mind today on any subject should be finer, 
higher and better than the previous concep- 
tion. 

People get old because they think "old 
thoughts", — the same thoughts they have 
thought for years. No new brain cells are 
vitalized under this procedure. No new asso- 
ciation centers are organized. This means 
brain-atrophy. 

Nature's workings do not produce the con- 
ditions of age. These conditions are pro- 
duced by man's refusal to lend himself to the 
renewing processes of nature. People who 
have passed through many experiences of 
many kinds consider themselves old and worn 
because we look upon experience as a wear- 
ing process instead of a renewing process. 

To stay young train your mind to use every 
experience, that is, every association center, 
for the awakening of more mental power. 

When we have trained ourselves to think of 
every experience as a developing, enlarging 

184 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

process we will no longer grow old from ex- 
perience, but will rather capitalize it and let 
it teach us how to stay young. 

Every experience tends to produce an im- 
pression on the mind. Whether that impres- 
sion is ageing or revivifying depends on the 
mental attitude toward the experience while 
the impression was being made. Simply to 
"pass thru" an experience is to impress your- 
self with the idea of wear and tear, but to look 
on every experience as the gateway to larger 
and larger growth will tend to make that ex- 
perience, no matter how intense it may be, 
leave development instead of decay. 

You must not allow yourself to settle into 
grooves. Never permit yourself a final con- 
clusion on anything. Always keep your mind 
open. No one has any right to final conclu- 
sions; everything is comparative, nothing is 
absolute. The fixed ideas of most people are 
merely thoughts gone to seed. If you have 
prejudices your mind is ossified. 

To stay young is natural. We know that 
because everything in nature is being con- 
stantly renewed, and is therefore always 
young. 

Every condition that is adverse to nature 
produces age. Whenever your body or mind 

185 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

are not working with nature they are working 
against it. 

From the time a child first hears about old 
age his mind begins to work against nature, 
to take it for granted that he will look old, feel 
old and be old when he has had a certain num- 
ber of birthdays. 

When the inter-dependence of body and 
mind are better understood, when we have 
discovered more of nature's physical and men- 
tal laws, the average life of the individual will 
be several times what it is today. 

In order that you may prolong your own 
life let me give you this final word: Have an 
absorbing aim in life. If there is something 
you want to do begin it today regardless of 
how many years have elapsed since you were 
born. Expel from your mind the notion that 
there is a deadline at fifty, sixty, or even 
ninety. Don't give up your professional or 
financial ambition just because of your age. 
Read the biographies of successful men and 
women and see how many of them made their 
fame and fortune after middle age. 

Mark Twain was "dead broke" at sixty and 
owed more than one hundred thousand dol- 
lars. In the sixteen years which elapsed after 
that before his death, he not only repaid every 

186 



HOW TO STAY YOUNG 

penny but left a large fortune. Walt Mason, 
who writes the rippling rhymes you read every 
morning at breakfast, says: "At forty-three I 
was a jobless misfit/' For some time he has 
been receiving twenty-five thousand dollars a 
year for doing the thing he always liked to do, 
but which he had never before tried to cap- 
italize. 

You are never too old to start over. If you 
start at what you like to do, it alone will per- 
petuate your youth. Seneca said, "Man does 
not die, he kills himself." 



187 




CHAPTER V 

HOW TO HAVE A GOOD 
MEMORY 

"The* difference between you and the well- 
informed man you envy is that he remembers 
things and you don't.'' 

THORNDYKE. 

HE subject of memory is fascinat- 
ing because so much depends upon 
it. Without memory all the knowl- 
edge of the ages would be worth- 
less. Without your own memories you could 
not know who you are. You would not 
know your name. You would not know how 
to find your way home or recognize your own 
children. You would not know, but for this 
faculty, how to walk, how to read, how to 
speak, how to carry food to your mouth, how 
to dress yourself. Memory is the thing that 
determines identity. 

Without memory you would be helpless, 
ignorant, hopeless. The success of each hour 
depends to a great degree on profiting by pre- 
vious experience. Without memory you 

188 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

would make the same mistakes indefinitely. 
Without memory you could never learn any- 
thing. But for memory you would appear to 
be an imbecile. 

The importance of a good memory can 
scarcely be exaggerated. Socially, the man 
who can tell a good story, relate the details of 
an experience and give illustrations, is always 
sought after. In domestic life the failure to 
remember birthdays and anniversaries has pre- 
cipitated more than one divorce. Every house- 
wife knows to what a surprising extent suc- 
cessful home-making depends on remembering 
the little things that must be looked after. In 
business, references, dates, statistics, facts, 
conversations and legal points, must be stored 
in the memory if a man would succeed. He 
must keep his appointments. He must know 
not only his own business but the business of 
his competitor, and remember all manner of 
details in the running of his own business. In 
the professions it is equally important. Phy- 
sicians, dentists, lawyers, engineers, lecturers 
and others, succeed largely in proportion to 
their ability to remember. 

What do we mean by memory? We mean 
a mental picture. These mental pictures hang- 
ing in the gallery of your mind are all that 

189 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
connect you with the person you were yester- 
day. The things you remember from today 
are all that can identify you with the person 
you will be tomorrow. 

Memory may be likened to a preserving 
fluid which correlates the various elements of 
the personality and keeps them aware of each 
other. But for the memories you have of 
yourself yesterday you might have been a 
piece of furniture, a horse or a street car. 

It is this cord called memory which ties to- 
gether the billions of thoughts and experiences 
of your past and organizes them into groups 
called association centers. Around each event 
of your life it has grouped the various inci- 
dents related to it; around the most important 
ones it has built memories of everything and 
everybody who was connected with it at the 
time. With such perfection has the intricate 
system been constructed that the mention of 
one of the smallest elements will bring to mind 
the central figure. Step by step the wires of 
memory's marvelous telegraph system trace 
back in the order in which the events oc- 
curred, and in an instant they are at the 
source. Whenever you recall anything, this 
has happened in your mind. 

190 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
The problem in memory training is to learn 
how to start the associations which will awak- 
en the desired memories. 

You see the truth of this a dozen times a 
day. The sight of so insignificant a thing as 
a pin may suddenly bring back to you the 
recollection of where you placed an impor- 
tant parcel weeks ago. Because it all hap- 
pens so quickly, you imagine your mind 
jumped from the pin to the parcel in one leap, 
but if you could slow down the wheels of 
your mental machinery as the movie man 
slows down the picture when they put to- 
gether again the house that has been blown 
up, you would see that your mind took dozens 
of logical steps back over the ground. The 
pin subconsciously reminded you of some- 
thing which in its turn reminded you of other 
things, and these reminded you of others, and 
so on, back to the parcel. It almost seems in 
such cases that something breaks through the 
obstruction, and from there on the path is 
easy. 

Most speakers declare they select a word as 
a key to whole paragraphs and pages. By 
keeping this key word in mind everything else 
follows in a procession. 

191 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Trying to recall by the force of will is never 
the best method. When you have need for 
remembering something, relax the body and 
mind as completely as possible. Avoid con- 
centrating on anything. Not always, but in 
most instances, it will find the scent and fol- 
low it back to the thing you want. 

Going back to the place where you last re- 
member having a thing will often start the 
train of memories of what you did with it 
from that point onward. 

It is now known that the best way to help 
a witness remember accurately is to take him 
back where the events transpired. People who 
in the court room remember nothing, sud- 
denly remember all the details when they re- 
turn to the spot. 

The notion that to have at one's tongue's 
end masses of dates, numbers, statistics and 
facts in order to prove his intelligence is not 
only erroneous but dangerous. We all have 
today many more of these than we have any 
need for. 

The aim of this lesson, therefore, is not to 
teach you how to become a human encyclo- 
paedia, but to give you the rules whereby you 
may cultivate the kind of memory which will 
be of practical aid to you in your life. 

192 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

If you could learn and remember all the 
facts of history, science, art, — everything that 
has ever occurred since the beginning of time, 
it would be of no service to you save as you 
applied it to your own problems. No amount 
of information is valuable to you unless it 
enters into your thinking, unless it can be used 
in the form of judgments and conclusions. 

Therefore, the first rule I have for you is 
this: Do not try to remember everything. 

Never try to remember anything which you 
cannot use or which you can see no oppor- 
tunity for using in the future. 

You have only a certain amount of mental 
energy. When this is being centered on re- 
membering unnecessary things, you do not 
have as good a memory for the things which 
are important to you. The first step in gain- 
ing a good memory is to gain a good "for- 
getter." 

Deliberately refuse to open your conscious- 
ness to irrelevant, isolated or unessential 
things. When they come into your life in 
spite of this, deliberately forget them. Don't 
allow them to stay and clutter up your mind. 

The average mind is like a huge attic, filled 
with the debris of the past, jammed with 

193 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

broken furniture, the cracked dishes, the tat- 
tered accessories of the years behind us. In- 
stead of building a bonfire of them, eliminat- 
ing them from our lives, we strain to retain 
them, and when some valueless remnant is 
missing, — if you fail to recall a date or a name 
from those dead years, — you consider your 
memory is failing. 

Make up your mind that you are not going 
to allow yourself to remember the things 
which can do you no good; that you are go- 
ing to reserve all of your mental capacity for 
storing away the information, facts and data 
that are necessary to your individual needs 
and to your particular line of work. 

Life is short. To make yours a success you 
have got to be a specialist. But concentrating 
your actions on a certain specialty will never 
make an expert of you, unless you also con- 
centrate your thoughts on it. 

I do not mean that you should become nar- 
now. But this will not make you narrow. 
The ramifications, highways and byways of 
knowledge, into which every specialty will 
lead you, will preclude narrowness. 

But I want you to organize your life. To 

do that you must make every mental faculty 

work toward your big aim in life. 

194 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

One of the most important is memory. 
Your memory is the servant that must gather 
together all ingredients of your knowledge, 
training and education on your specialty. If 
she spends a large percentage of her time 
gathering data on matters you will never use, 
you will not go as far in your line as if you 
kept her at work on the one big subject. 

The man who wishes to become a success- 
ful lawyer does not spend half his time in a 
medical school. To be sure, he finds it neces- 
sary sometimes to know something about the 
science of medicine, but when that time comes 
he studies only those phases of therapeutics 
which he needs in his law practice. He does 
not waste time delving into the whole science. 
Whether you have such a profession in view 
or not, you have a specialty. That specialty 
is to make a success of your life. 

To make a success of your life your mind 
must lay successful plans. It cannot do this 
if you make of it merely a card index system, 
if you reduce it to the position of a file clerk. 

Make up your mind what you are going to 
do with the years that are ahead of you, then 
make everything in your life, directly or in- 
directly, serve that one aim. Think of your 
life as a wheel and make everything build to- 

195 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

ward your one aim as the spokes run into the 
hub. 

One of the first essentials in this direction 
is the right kind of reading. Never, except for 
relaxation, devote your precious time and 
your priceless brain cells to reading what you 
cannot use. 

Acquire the best books and magazines on 
your chosen specialty. Keep your eyes open 
as you pass news stands for special articles in 
other magazines. 

Having done this, learn the second step, — 
how to get everything important out of an 
article, a chapter or a book in the shortest 
time. If you are thoroughly interested in this 
specialty of yours you will soon develop a sur- 
prising alertness for relevant material. Your 
eye will soon be able to gather the kernel from 
a page at a glance. For every grain of wheat 
there is much chaff. Learn to lift that grain 
of wheat the instant you glance at a page. 

While we are on the subject of Interest, I 
will give you the four stages, or ancestors, of 
Memory. They are: 
Desire 
Interest 
Attention 
Memory 

196 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
What we truly desire, we are interested in. 
We are interested in everything concerning it. 
Desire, therefore, is the mother of Interest; 
Interest is the mother of Attention, for we 
give our attention to that in which we are in- 
terested. Attention is the secret of Memory. 
You remember the things to which you give 
concentrated attention. The lack of attention 
is responsible for what you call your "poor 
memory." 

But it is not that you have forgotten. You 
cannot forget a thing you never knew. If 
you fail to give it your attention you never 
know it. 

I know a woman in an unusual profession. 
Owing to the fact that it is a new profession, 
little is printed concerning it. But this woman 
manages to find all the articles, stories and 
pamphlets on that subject. She does not do 
this by giving all of her time to searching for 
them. She is busy 12 hours of every 24 in 
the actual performance of her profession, but 
so intense is her interest in it that she spies 
titles and headings instantaneously as she 
dashes past news stands, the windows of book 
stores or any other places. She has trained her 
interest upon that one subject for so long that 

197 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
it ferrets out and draws to her masses of in- 
formation, statistics, etc. 

Not only her eyes, but her ears, have been 
trained as under-servants to Interest. She 
may be sitting in the last row of a great audi- 
ence, but if the speaker happens to make even 
the slightest mention, in the most indirect 
way, of anything pertaining to her work, she 
catches every word, — the author's name, the 
subject of the article and everything else 
which the speaker refers to in connection with 
it. 

This woman makes a practice of keeping 
her mind clear for the things necessary to her 
progress as the head of her profession. She 
does not fill her mental house with neighbors, 
friends, distant relatives and skeletons. She 
keeps plenty of spare rooms ready for visit- 
ors, — the new thoughts and ideas of her pro- 
fession, which may happen along. Tune your 
attention to catch the things that are vital to 
you. 

Self-interest is the mother of Desire. You 
always remember best that which is to your 
interest. You can in fact teach yourself al- 
most anything if it is of sufficient importance 
in your scheme of things. This was amus* 

198 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

ingly illustrated to me in Chicago a few years 
ago. 

A boy stood at the entrance of a huge din- 
ing room and took every man's hat. He gave 
no checks and employed nothing to aid him 
in remembering to which man each hat be- 
longed. The men did not come out in the 
order in which they went in. They wandered 
out by ones and twos during the course of the 
next two hours. Though there were over 200 
hats he did not make one mistake. Every man 
was given his own hat. 

I asked him how he did it. He told me that 
he did not have more than an average memory 
when he became a hat boy. "But," he said, 
"I tried trusting to my memory just to see 
what I could do. It's lonesome standing 
around here with nothing to do but take hats. 
After a little while I told the other boys what 
I could do. They made bets with me that I 
couldn't. I had to win the bets and after that 
I began to have a reputation as 'the boy with 
the wonderful memory.' To live up to it I 
had to improve my memory, and when I casu- 
ally mentioned to a man the date on which he 
was here last, he was flattered and gave me a 
larger tip. The more I remember the more I 
make." 

199 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

This boy's case is a simple illustration of 
how self-interest is back of memory. In the 
case of the woman it is more complex but 
equally true. 

Freud, whose writings have advanced the 
science of the subconscious during the past 
few years, says, in his "Psychopathology of 
Everyday Life," page 45: "I observed that 
of a great number of professional calls I never 
forgot any that I was to make on colleagues/' 
Our interest in friends and contemporaries is 
always greater than that in strangers. It is 
also closely linked with self-interest. 

Dr. Ernest Jones maintains that we all have 
a tendency to forget whatever brings unpleas- 
ant associations. "In my own life," he de- 
clared, "I have on numerous occasions forgot- 
ten appointments with patients who were very 
tedious and uninteresting. " 

If you doubt that interest produces atten- 
tion and attention produces memory, notice 
with what vividness you recall the dress, the 
colors and every detail worn by one of the 
opposite sex after you have become interested 
in them. Note also your inability to remem- 
ber what he or she wore on the occasions be- 
fore your interest was aroused. 

200 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

You give your attention to that in which 
you are truly interested. You will remember 
that to which you have been induced to give 
concentration. 

Edgar James Swift in his "Psychology and 
the Day's Work," relates a story told by Al 
Jennings, about how he forced a district attor- 
ney to fix his attention upon a wrong date in 
order to establish an alibi for one of his 
crimes. 

Jennings and his gang robbed a train on 
October 1. The next day, October 2, Jen- 
nings walked into the office of the district at- 
torney and said: " Tve been hearing a lot of 
fool talk about my robbing trains and going 
on the dodge. I'm tired of it. I intend to sur- 
render, face the music, and clear myself. Tve 
a few things to settle up first, then I'm coming 
in. This is October 1st; two weeks from to- 
day, October 15th, I'll return. Have your 
officers ready.' And as I left his office I re- 
peated : 

" 'Make a note of it — this is October 1st, 
and I'm coming back on the 15th.' " 

11 'According to expectations, Pittman was 
so excited at seeing me and hearing of my in- 
tentions that the date impressed itself on his 

201 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

mind only as an inconsequential detail. He 
never thought to look it up at the time, and 
when I had use for him it was fixed in his 
mind— wrong. 

"Going to the saloon of Ike Renfrow, I got 
him to send for Bob Motley, the sheriff, my 
father, and my brother John. Motley was my 
friend; I knew he wouldn't arrest me without 
a warrant. To them I talked just as I had to 
Pittman, getting the false date — October 1st 
— into their minds. No one thought to verify 
my statement of the date. This made a per- 
fect alibi, for the robbery had occurred eighty 
miles away on noon of October 1st.' " 

Some scientists maintain that nothing we 
have ever known, heard, read or experienced 
ever passes entirely out of the mind. They 
maintain that everything you see or hear is 
filed away in the storehouse of the subcon- 
scious. 

Swift relates the three following cases, 
which go far to substantiate this theory: 

"A young woman of four or five and 
twenty, who could neither read nor write, was 
seized with a nervous fever, during which, ac- 
cording to the statements of all the priests and 
monks of the neighborhood, she became pos- 
sessed, and, as it appeared, by a very learned 

202 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

devil. She continued incessantly talking Lat- 
in, Greek, and Hebrew, in very pompous 
tones and with most distinct enunciation . . . 

The case had attracted the particular atten- 
tion of a young physician, and by his state- 
ment many eminent physiologists and psychol- 
ogists had visited the town and made cross- 
examinations. Sheets full of her ravings were 
taken down from her own mouth, and were 
found to consist of sentences, coherent and 
intelligible each for itself, but with little or 
no connection with each other. Of the He- 
brew, a small portion only could be traced to 
the Bible; the remainder seemed to be in the 
Rabbinical dialect. 

"All trick or conspiracy was out of the 
question. Not only had the young woman 
ever been a harmless, simple creature, but she 
was evidently laboring under a nervous 
fever. . . . 

"The young physician determined to trace 
her past life step by step. . . . He, at length 
succeeded in discovering the place where her 
parents had lived . . . and learned from an 
uncle that the patient had been charitably 
taken by an old Protestant pastor at nine years 
of age and had remained with him some 
years. . . . 

203 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY' 

"Anxious inquiries were then, of course, 
made concerning the pastor's habits; and the 
solution of the phenomenon was soon ob- 
tained. For it appeared that it had been the 
old man's custom for years to walk up and 
down a passage of his house into which the 
kitchen opened, and to read to himself with 
a loud voice out of his favorite books . . . 

"Among the books were found a collection 
of Rabbinical writings, together with several 
of the Greek and Latin fathers; and the phy- 
sician succeeded in identifying so many pas- 
sages with those taken down at the young 
woman's bedside, that no doubt could remain 
in any rational mind concerning the true 
origin of the impressions made on her ner- 
vous system." 

"One of the amazing features of this case, 
if correctly reported, is that the woman could 
not have understood any of the sentences 
which she heard and afterward repeated." 

Your subconscious is the treasure vault of 
memory. In it is doubtless stored every ex- 
perience thru which you have ever passed. 
But you have lost the combination. 

In this lesson I am going to teach you that 
combination. A good memory is yours for 

204 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

the making, but no one can make it for you. 
I shall show you how; then you must do it 
yourself. 

The "flash of inspiration" as the lawyer 
cadis the brilliant thought that wins him his 
case, does not come from something outside 
himself. It rises to the surface from the 
depths of his subconscious ocean. 

Swift goes on to say: ' There are various 
ways in which 'lost' memories may disclose 
themselves. Not infrequently those accus- 
tomed to follow trails through dense woods 
are unable to recall the paths or direction that 
they took to reach their destination. Yet, 
several years later, when they again set out 
upon the same trip, the journey is a contin- 
uous succession of familiar objects and vistas. 
Here half a dozen trails cross; but a stone or 
tree, or some other familiar object, indicates 
the route, though so far as the traveller is 
aware he gave no unusual attention to these 
landmarks when he first took the trip. But 
more striking instances are sometimes ob- 
served. 

"William B. Carpenter has given an inter- 
esting case which shows how experiences of 
childhood may be impressed and conserved 
though the 'memory' reveals nothing of them. 

205 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Later, when a part of the same childhood's 
experience is again witnessed, the entire scene, 
in all its details, is reproduced as a vision. 

" 'Several years ago/ says Carpenter, 'The 
Reverend S. Hansard, now rector of Bethnal 
Green, was doing clerical duty for a time at 
Hurstmonceaux, in Sussex; and while there 
he one day went over with a party of friends 
to Pevensey Castle, which he did not remem- 
ber ever to have previously visited. As he 
approached the gateway he became conscious 
of a very vivid impression of having seen it 
before; and he 'seemed to himself to see' 
not only the gateway itself, but the donkeys 
beneath the arch, and people on the top of 
it. 

His conviction that he must have visited 
the castle on some former occasion — although 
he had neither the slightest remembrance of 
such a visit nor any knowledge of having 
been in the neighborhood before going to 
Hurstmonceaux — made him inquire from his 
mother whether she could throw any light on 
the matter. 

She at once informed him that, being in 
that part of the country when he was about 
eighteen months old, she had gone over with 
a large party, and had taken him in the pan- 

206 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

nier of a donkey; that the elders of the party 
having brought lunch with them had eaten it 
on the roof of the gateway, where they would 
have been seen from below, while he had been 
left on the ground with the attendants and 
donkeys/ " 

In all courts much depends on the testi- 
mony of witnesses. Many a man has been 
hanged on the testimony of another whose 
memory was inaccurate. Numberless men 
and women have been disgraced for life by 
the stories of those who thought they were 
telling the truth, but whose memories were 
not good. For the best illustration of this in 
psychological literature, it is necessary to turn 
again to Swift. He says : 

"A few years ago the writer's attention 
was directed to a rather remarkable criminal 
trial. In 1871 Alexander Jester started east 
from Kansas in a light spring wagon with 
canvas top, drawn by two small pony horses. 
While fording a stream near Emporia, as the 
horses were drinking, he fell into conversa- 
tion with Gilbert Gates, a young man who 
was returning from homesteading land in 
Kansas. Young Gates was travelling in what 
was then known as a prairie-schooner drawn 
by a pair of heavy horses. Jester had three 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

young deer in his wagon, and Gates a buffalo 
calf. They decided to travel together and give 
exhibitions with their animals to meet ex- 
penses. When they reached Paris, Missouri, 
Gates had disappeared. 

"Jester's explanation, at the preliminary 
hearing, was that he became homesick and 
sold his outfit to him that he might hasten 
home by rail. 

"Jester was seen leaving Paris driving 
Gates' heavy team with his own lighter team 
tied behind. Later he sold the heavy horses 
and various other articles known to have be- 
longed to Gates, but which he claimed were 
purchased. 

"It is not the purpose of the writer to decide 
the merits of the case, but rather to call atten- 
tion to certain exceedingly interesting psycho- 
logical features. 

"Jester was soon arrested but escaped, and 
was not brought to trial until 1901. Thirty 
years had therefore passed since the events 
concerning which witnesses were called upon 
to testify. Besides, there was a blinding 
snow-storm at the time when the crime was 
supposed to have been committed; and, of 
course, this would have interfered with ac- 
curate observation. Further, when the wit- 

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HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

nesses 'saw* the things which they related 
they were not aware that a crime had been 
committed. 

"Two preliminary questions thus suggest 
themselves: First, would any one note, as 
carefully as the subsequent testimony indi- 
cated, the peculiarities of a chance traveller 
on the road, especially in a blinding snow- 
storm, and at a time when no reason existed, 
so far as known, for unusual observation? 
Second, would observers, under these circum- 
stances, be likely to remember, after a lapse 
of thirty years, the minute details of what 
they had seen? The incidents were of the 
unimportant, uninteresting sort that were fre- 
quently experienced at that time. Even the 
prairie-schooner could hardly have been ex- 
ceptional enough to attract special attention, 
since, as will be seen later, one of the wit- 
nesses was taking his wedding-trip on horse- 
back, with his wife behind him on the same 
horse. But let us turn to the testimony. 

"When the trial was held, two women de- 
scribed the size and color of all the horses, 
the harness of the heavy team, the figure and 
appearance of Jester — height, a little over six 
feet, weight about one hundred and eighty 

209 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

pounds, with a hook-nose, gray eyes, power- 
ful physique, and large hands. 

'They further testified that, looking into 
the first wagon as it approached, they saw 
lying in the bottom the outlines of a human 
form with a buffalo-robe thrown over it; and 
they gave this testimony confidently, thirty 
years after the crime, notwithstanding they 
were twelve and fourteen years of age, re- 
spectively, when the events transpired, and 
though they were riding at a canter in the 
face of a heavy snow-storm, with veils tied 
over their faces, and the horses which they 
met were traveling at a fast trot when they 
passed in the storm. 

"A farmer swore that the buffalo-robe was 
covered with blood, and still another witness 
that, while helping Jester start his wagon, the 
canvas blew back and he saw the body of a 
man with his throat cut. The description of 
the body was that of young Gates. 

"A man who had just been married, and 
was taking his wife behind him on his horse to 
their new home, described the horses attached 
to each wagon, the wagons, and the dog; and 
this in spite of the fact that his own horse 
was going at the 'single foot' gait, that Jes- 
ter's horses were trotting past, that it was 

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HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
snowing hard, and that, being on his honey- 
moon, other thoughts and interests would 
seem to be occupying his mind. 

"A man of thirty-six, who consequently was 
six years of age at the time of the crime, tes- 
tified that later, during the thaw and heavy 
rains of spring, he and his father saw the body 
of a young man of eighteen or twenty years 
of age floating down the stream. He de- 
scribed the color of his hair and complexion, 
and said that he had on a blue-checked shirt 
and blue overalls. His description of the shirt 
agreed with that of Mrs. Gates of a shirt 
which she had made for her son. 

"It is interesting to note, in this connection, 
that neither the father of the six-year-old boy 
nor the girls who saw the outlines of a human 
form in the wagon, nor the man who helped 
start Jester off, said anything about their ob- 
servations until Gates' disappearance and 
Jester's arrest had been published. 

"It is quite evident that, whatever the 
merits of the case, the testimony of these 
witnesses, after a lapse of thirty years, was 
amazingly exact. Yet it would be unfair to 
assume that they were dishonest. All of 
those from whose testimony we have quoted 

211 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
were people of good standing in the com- 
munity. They could be relied upon both in 
word and deed. The attorney for the defense, 
in the case speaks in the highest terms of these 
witnesses. They were among the best peo- 
ple of Monroe County/ he says. They want- 
ed to be truthful, and they were very friendly 
to me, entertaining me over night when I was 
looking up evidence preparatory to the trial/ 

"What then was the explanation of their 
remarkable exactness, even in the smallest 
and in some instances least noticeable and 
least interesting details? The key to the mys- 
tery lies in the way in which the case was 
worked up, in the publicity that it received, 
and in human psychology. 

"After Jester's final arrest, Pinkerton de- 
tectives were employed and seven or eight 
leading criminal lawyers of Missouri and Chi- 
cago were engaged to assist the prosecution. 
The detectives, as they secured one fact after 
another, culminated the information by sug- 
gestive questions and statements to those with 
whom they conversed. When, for example, a 
prospective witness said that there was a buf- 
falo-robe in the wagon the detectives would 
ask if it covered the outlines of a human form. 

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HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
The man would think it likely, and soon that 
it did. 

"Of course the case was featured in the 
county newspapers. It was a first-class news 
story. Pictures were published, pictures of 
Jester and Gates, pictures of the horses and 
wagons, pictures of the dog, and pictures of 
scenes in the chain of events leading to the 
alleged crime. The pictures were based on 
what witnesses said they saw, and what the 
detectives said they must have seen, and no 
reportorial imagination whatever was lacking. 
The clothing of Gates was described, the ar- 
ticles he had with him enumerated, the facts to 
which certain witnesses would swear were 
told to other witnesses and reported in the 
newspapers. Indeed, all the events of the 
crime as it was conceived by witnesses, re- 
porters, and detectives were portrayed and 
described with much the effect of a moving- 
picture representation, until fact and fiction 
were indistinguishable. 

"It is a well-known principle of psychology 
that if you tell a man something often enough 
he finally accepts it; and as he continually 
repeats it, even as a possible fact, it ends by 
becoming firmly fixed. Then he believes that 
he saw or heard it. 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

"We must not forget that all this happened 
thirty years after the events. The undetected 
vagueness of memory-details of the witnesses 
furnished a fertile soil for the growth of imag- 
inary pictures. The attempt to see faces in 
the moon is comparable to their experience. 
With a dim outline, or a sketch with several 
possibilities, there is always a strong tendency 
to fill in the outlines, usually with what is in 
one's mind. As an illustration, ask a group 
of persons to indicate the kind of a figure six 
which is upon their watch-dial. They will be 
found to divide between VI and 6. A few, 
whose memory is more accurate than that of 
the others, recalling that the figures take their 
line of direction from the center of the dial, 
will write the figure upside down. All, ex- 
cept those to whose attention the peculiarity 
has already been called, will 'remember' see- 
ing the figure. Yet, in watches with a second- 
hand there is no six. 

"Despite the best intentions of truthful peo- 
ple, there are many ways in which the mem- 
ory may be disturbed without the individual 
being aware of the alteration; and a brief ref- 
erence to some of the causes of these memory 
distortions will reveal the fickleness of this 
reproducer of past experiences. These altera- 

214 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

tions of memory have a bearing upon reports 
of events given either as sworn testimony or 
in social intercourse, and all are intimately re- 
lated to the psychology of the day's work. 

"One of the causes of unintentional per- 
version of memory is the constant talk that 
an exciting occurrence produces. There is al- 
ways a tendency to say what we wish might 
have happened. This is especially true when 
we ourselves participated in the events, The 
most frequent source of false memory/ says 
James, 'is the accounts we give to others of 
our experiences. Such accounts we almost al- 
ways make both more simple and more inter- 
esting than the truth. We quote what we 
should have said or done rather than what we 
really said or did; and in the first telling we 
may be fully aware of the distinction. But, 
ere long, the fiction expels the reality from 
memory and reigns in its stead alone/ It is 
not necessary, however, that we be partici- 
pants in the events. The tendency to enlarge 
upon a story is human. So strong is this in- 
clination that if there is nothing unusual in 
the occurrence the story-teller transforms the 
common into the uncommon. This is especi- 
ally true when the marvelous is involved. 
Man is saturated with the mysterious. 9 " 

215 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

The explanation of the exaggerated testi- 
mony given by these witnesses in the Jester 
trial is one which applies more or less to 
every one. 

We are all inclined to let memory trick us 
into believing we really saw what we wish we 
had seen. If we see only a small part of a 
great catastrophe, such as a fire or an acci- 
dent, the desire of the mind to have seen it all 
will incline even the most truthful person to 
believe next day that he saw a little more of 
it than he really did. If he recounts the oc- 
currence, adding the scenes which he failed 
to see but which he heard others describe, the 
day after that he will almost believe he saw 
them himself. If he has occasion to repeat the 
narration many times, a week later the aver- 
age person will be telling the whole story as 
though he saw all of it. This will be especially 
true if no moral issue is involved and no harm 
done to any one by the exaggeration. A 
month later you would have a hard time con- 
vincing him that he didn't see it all. The 
gaps between the scenes he actually did see 
would be by that time so perfectly filled in by 
the mental pictures which his own talking had 
painted, that he could not distinguish clearly 

between them. 

216 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
A young man of my acquaintance saw a 
runaway horse dashing down the street with 
no driver in the wagon. Around the corner, 
a block away and entirely out of sight, the 
driver, who had been thrown from the wagon, 
was describing in a sensational way his col- 
lison with another vehicle, how the horse be- 
came frightened, how he tried to keep con- 
trol of him and how he was finally thrown 
out 

The young man who had seen only the 
horse, came up just in time to hear the man 
giving these descriptions. So vividly did he 
describe them, and so much did the young 
man regret not seeing them, that next after- 
noon he told a group of his friends about the 
affair, beginnng at the beginning and making 
himself a witness to the entire accident. 

He was not ordinarily an untruthful young 
man, but he was young. In youth we all long 
to participate in thrilling, sensational, myster- 
ious adventures. Desire, which figures prom- 
inently in all memory, was so great in this 
young man that he believed he actually had 
seen the runaway from the time it started. 

In recollecting anything, we are inclined to 
think of what we wish had happened, to place 

217 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

the interpretations we prefer on events. In 
a little while we find it impossible to dis- 
tinguish between what actually occurred and 
our thoughts about what might have occur- 
red. 

To be sure, wishes, desires, preferences con- 
trol our interpretations of every event of life 
to a far greater extent than we realize. What 
psychologists call a retroactive memory some- 
times steps in and fulfills these hopes in our 
minds. Thinking of what we wish we had 
done on a certain occasion, we think that 
action into our series of memories. 

The mind also has a habit of transposing 
our experiences and inserting them in the 
chronological order in which we wish they 
had transpired. For instance, witnesses often 
testify to having examined the spot where the 
murder was committed. In their testimony 
they insert their examination after the crime, 
for that lends a more dramatic element to the 
story. 

Bias, prejudice, preference of all kinds blind 
us to details opposed to those prejudices. 
Often we do not intentionally shut out these 
details. They are shut out for us by that little 
doorkeeper of our subconscious mind, "At- 

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HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
tention." Let two people hear a lecture, one 
disliking, the other liking the speaker. On 
the way home the one who was fond of the 
speaker will refer to the pleasing manners, 
the attractive dress, the charming personality 
and distinct voice which won him in the first 
place. The other will be unable to remember 
these points, even though the efforts of the 
speaker in these directions were so great as 
to be apparent to everyone else. The same 
is true of the arguments brought forth. De- 
bates and political rallies significantly illus- 
trate how we see what we wish to see, hear 
what we wish to hear, and forget the rest. 

A Republican and a Democrat go together 
to a Democratic meeting. Next day the Dem- 
ocrat will recall only those points and inci- 
dents which aided the Democratic side. The 
Republican will have forgotten them, but will 
distinctly remember any misstatements or de- 
rogatory incidents. Hearing these two men 
describe the evening's events you would never 
guess they were describing the same rally. 

To a man who wishes to believe a thing, 
every small incident is significant evidence, 
just as, to him who does not wish to believe 
it, nothing is sufficient to make it seem true. 

The psychology of college debates years 
219 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
ago convinced me of this. Whether our team 
won or lost, we remembered only the good 
points it had made, those places where it dis- 
tinguished itself, those refutations in which 
it was most brilliant. If one of our speak- 
ers achieved a moment of real victory we 
recounted it with such fervor that to our lis- 
teners it out-weighed the adverse decision of 
the judges. In fact we almost forgot that the 
decision went against us. How hard it was 
to recall the telling points made by the oppos- 
ing team! For the life of us, and in all sin- 
cerity, we couldn't remember one of them! 

Memory keeps green the pictures of our tri- 
umphs, unless the individual is inclined to 
morbidity, and then it keeps alive the inci- 
dents in which he failed. In either case, how- 
ever, it is the same law of desire in operation. 
The morbid individual prefers to recall the 
unpleasant. He gets a kind of pleasure from 
his own suffering. 

The forgetting of anything to which one 
has given attention at the time of its occur- 
rence is often due to a subconscious desire to 
forget it. No matter how much you con- 
centrate your attention on the name of a man 
at the time he is introduced to you, you are 
likely to forget it if, after being introduced to 

220 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
him, you form a dislike for him. If, in the 
back of your mind, you prefer not to know 
him you probably will not know him the next 
time you meet him. 

If you are given unpleasant tasks to per- 
form, such as mailing your wife's letters, no 
impression she can make on your mind will 
be as vivid as those connected with pleasant 
tasks. Everything which evokes painful feel- 
ings is more easily forgotten than those which 
bring pleasant ones. An engagement you pre- 
fer not to keep is the one you actually forget. 

I will now give you the three fundamental 
laws of memory in their order: 

Attention 

Association 

Repetition 
When you have decided that you wish to re- 
member a thing, that it is conducive to your 
interests to keep it in mind, give it your un- 
divided attention. Turn the lens of your men- 
tal camera, of which I told you in a previous 
lesson, directly on the thing you wish to re- 
member. Close the shutter until your mind 
is focused directly and exclusively on that 
one thing. Keep it there for the space of an 
instant, then tie it up mentally with some- 

221 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
thing else — associate it with something, re- 
late it to something already in your life. For 
instance, if you are reading an important fact 
in a trade magazine, get the fact clearly in 
mind. Then do not leave it isolated, but de- 
cide then and there in what connection you 
will probably make use of that idea. 

It may be of help to you for me to use here 
a personal illustration. I have in my reper- 
toire over sixty lectures. Not a sentence in 
one of these sixty lectures is memorized, yet 
I am never at a loss. I am always being asked 
how I accomplish it. It is not difficult. 

I was not born with more than average 
memory powers. In fact I was often im- 
pressed as a child with the deficiency of my 
memory. After several years of newspaper 
work in which I relied on notes exclusively, 
giving my memory little to do, I found my- 
self unable to remember names, faces, dates 
or events. At about this time I entered pub- 
lic work, the two chief requirements of which 
were that I remember names and faces and 
make interesting, accurate, extemporaneous 
speeches. Later in this lesson I will tell you 
how I mastered the memory for names and 
faces, but just now I want to tell you how I 
mastered the lectures. 

222 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

Knowing that my future success in life de- 
pended largely on the success I made of this 
work, the first element, — that of self-interest, 
— was present. The second element, — desire, 
— was there because I very much wanted to 
do that particular work. This, as always, gave 
rise to the third stage, — interest in my sub- 
ject. No matter where I was, what I was 
doing, with whom I was talking, that interest 
was never out of mind. 

To get new angles on my subjects I induced 
people to talk about them and I read every- 
thing 1 could find on such subjects. When a 
remark or a sentence struck me as being val- 
uable I gave it such white heat concentration 
that I literally burned it into my mind. But 
I did not stop at that. I decided then and 
there in which lecture I would use that idea. 
Not only that, I decided under which heading 
in the lecture that particular idea belonged. 
I visualized myself saying it; I pictured the 
effect on my audience. I heard in my mind 
the sentence with which I would introduce it, 
and something of the words with which I 
should clothe the idea itself. With that I left 
it, trusting my memory absolutely to remind 
me of it at that particular point in that lec- 
ture. On the day of the lecture I went over 

223 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

in my mind the respective sections. These 
ideas invariably came to my mind and came 
out in my speech that evening as smoothly 
as those I had expressed before. 

Remember that all memory is a series of 
related pictures, and to be sure of remember- 
ing anything you must connect it arbitrarily 
or otherwise with something you already have. 
The content of your mind is like a commun- 
ity in which every person is related directly 
or indirectly to some other. Whenever you 
wish to remember a new idea you must marry 
it to some of these friends or it will get away 
from you. 

If there is something you wish to remem- 
ber to do connect it with something by decid- 
ing the time or place when you will do it 
Tell your mind to remind you, when you 
reach a certain spot opposite the postoffice, to 
turn in and mail the letters. When you get 
opposite the postoffice the sight of that par- 
ticular spot will usually remind you of the 
errand. 

The importance of association is proven in 
this: That your knowledge about anything, 
no matter what it is, is merely a knowledge 
that it is like something else or different from 
something else. 

224 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
One of the most important laws of memory 
is that of habit. In obedience to this law, the 
first idea to enter your mind after you see a 
certain thing will be the one you have most 
frequently associated it with in the past. 
The sight of a flower will bring to your mind 
the fragrance of that flower. The fragrance 
will bring the thought of perfumes, and this 
will bring to mind the perfume you are in the 
habit of using. The word "coffee" will sug- 
gest to each individual the particular cup of 
coffee he is in the habit of having. The men- 
tion of buying a home would bring to your 
mind the particular addition or neighborhood 
which you have been in the habit of visualiz- 
ing as the site of your future home; "shoes" 
will bring to the mind the particular make you 
have been buying lately; "tires" will remind 
you of the brand you are in the habit of using. 

It is well known that typists or pianists who 
have learned one system of fingering find it 
difficult to change because each letter or note 
is associated with a certain movement of a 
certain finger. Habit has so welded them to- 
gether that when one enters the mind the 
other responds automatically. 

The law of association expresses itself to 
225 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

you a hundred times a day. "Henry Ford" 
brings to your mind the picture of a little 
automobile. The word "home" brings to each 
of you a different picture, — the picture with 
which it is associated in your mnd. When I 
say "Cream of Wheat" you see the smiling 
face of a negro waiter. When I say "Y. M. 
C. A." you see a red triangle, and when I 
say "Y. W. C. A.," a blue one. Because all 
of these have been associated in your mind 
you cannot think of one without thinking of 
the other. 

Here is an exercise which will show you 
what I mean: Memory and brains — brains 
and head — head and headache — headache and 
doctor — doctor and medicine — medicine and 
bottle — bottle and wine. 

You can remember instantly that I used the 
word "medicine." You also recall whether or 
not I used the word "woman." 

Repetition under the right conditions is the 
third step in perfecting the memory. I say 
"right conditions" because it is now an ac- 
cepted fact that mere repetition, unless cou- 
pled with interest, does not make one remem- 
ber. 

Do not attempt to cultivate your memory 
226 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
by "memorizing a few lines each day." It 
has been shown that no amount of such me- 
chanical gymnastics improves the memory. 
Save your mental strength for the many things 
for which you will have some actual use in 
your daily life, and to which you find it easy 
to give attention. 

That children have better memories than 
adults is an exploded theory. Many investi- 
gations have been made by the most careful 
scientists with the result that it is now main- 
tained that the capacity to remember every- 
thing of importance in an individual's life im- 
proves throughout his life up to the time when 
his mental powers in general begin to decline. 

Children excel in rote-learning only, and 
this because they are accustomed to that par- 
ticular kind of memory work. 

Adults remember with greater facility than 
children for several reasons. First, they have 
greater ability for concentrating their atten- 
tion, second, their self-interest is keener, and 
third, their knowledge with its wealth of asso- 
ciations, is wider. The capacity for reflection, 
concentration and ambition varies with the 
individual, but adults have on the whole 
greater memory powers. 

227 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

In cultvating memory it is of the greatest 
importance to know to what kinds of sensa- 
tions you respond easiest and quickest. It 
goes without saying that the particular thing 
which gets your attention comes to you via 
the avenue of your most responsive senses. 

Many people remember best what they see; 
others remember more clearly what they hear, 
though the latter are decidedly in the minor- 
ity. The first are called the "eye-minded," 
the second, the "ear-minded." 

I have a friend who can never remember 
what she must get on a shopping tour, no 
matter how many times she tells her friends 
or herself what it is she wishes to purchase; 
but if she once writes the list of them, she can 
forget to take it with her, and remember every 
item. 

The explanation of this is that she is "eye- 
minded." No amount of telling or being told 
can make a clear impression on her mind, but 
the mental picture of the list is so vivid that 
the items recur to her in the exact order in 
which they were written. 

I have another friend who remembers best 
what he hears. All people who learn to play 
musical instruments "by ear" are "ear- 
minded." 

228 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 

In reciting a poem which one has memor- 
ized he usually has each stanza photographed 
in his mind and reads it aloud to his audience 
line for line from the page in his memory. 

This fact explains the ineffectiveness of 
memorized speeches. The audience is aware 
of being read to out of the speaker's mem- 
ory instead of being talked to out of his heart. 

If you do not know whether you are eye- 
minded or ear-minded, here are some tests: 

Can you remember how the breakfast table 
looked this morning? Can you imagine a 
street car in motion? Can you picture the 
distance between the postoffice and your 
home? If you answer "No" to these ques- 
tions you are deficient in eye-mindedness. 

Can you picture a hurricane in motion? 
Can you remember distinctly the different 
scenes around your childhood home? After 
reading an article in the newspaper, have you 
a keen memory as to where it was located on 
the page? If you answer "Yes" to these ques- 
tions you are above the average in eye-mind- 
edness. 

Can you, in imagination, hear the telephone 
bell ringing? Can you remember the voice of 
a relative you have not met for six months? 

229 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
If you answer "No" to these questions you 
are deficient in ear-mindedness. 

Can you mentally hear the breathing of a 
sleeping child? Can you in your mind hear 
thunder? Can you recall the tones of a selec- 
tion of music played on the violin? If you 
answer "Yes" to these questions you are 
above the average in ear-mindedness. 

To know whether you are more "ear- 
minded" or "eye-minded," recall which you 
remember best, printed words or spoken 
words. 

Your memory as explained before, is one 
of your mental servants. Treat it as you 
would any other servant of which you ex- 
pected good service. 

Your memory is your private secretary, 
file clerk, office boy, your mental library, all 
in one. 

If, upon securing important papers, I sent 
for my secretary, handed them to her and 
said, "Here are these papers. I shall want 
them some time; I do not know when, but 
some day I shall need them. Here they are. 
You are inefficient; you always fail me; you 
never can lay your hands on things when I 
want them, so I don't suppose you will be able 

230 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
to find these when I call for them." In addi- 
tion to this if I mentioned to a friend sitting 
beside me, "You know this secretary of mine 
is worthless; I can't depend on her at all" 
... do you think she would produce those 
papers when I needed them? She might, 
but the chances are she wouldn't. 

Memory, like other mental faculties, is re- 
sponsive to suggestion, and especially to auto- 
suggestion. 

If, on the other hand, I said to my secre- 
tary, "Here are some important papers. I 
have no idea when I shall need them but 
the time will come. Put them away and I 
will let you know. You are such an efficient 
secretary I know I can depend upon you to 
produce them when the time comes." If I 
also said this to my nearby friend in the sec- 
retary's presence, it would act as a further 
incentive. 

Your memory must be treated in exactly 
the same way. Give it clear, distinct infor- 
mation. If you are eye-minded, get a clear 
mental picture of it. If you are ear-minded 
associate it with sounds or whatever auditory 
images you prefer. Say to yourself, "I will 
remember that when I need it. When the 

231 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

time comes my memory will know just where 
to lay her hands on it." 

Here are the five laws for remembering 
names and faces: 

1. Remember that the memory of names 
and faces is vital to your success in any line 
of work, socially or financially. In other 
words, realize that your self-interest will be 
greatly subserved if you can recall, on sight, 
the names of people you have met. 

This fact is based in a psychological law. 
Everyone likes to be remembered; it flatters 
his vanity, it appeals to his ego, and at the 
same time increases his respect and admira- 
tion for you. That ego never quite forgives 
you if you fail to remember his name. 

2. When a man is being introduced to you 
be sure you not only hear his name clearly 
but know how it is spelled. If there is any 
doubt in your mind, ask the man himself to 
pronounce his name for you and spell it for 
you. Never ask this of the man who has 
done the introducing. That is a reflection on 
him. The other man will be glad to tell you 
because you are discussing the one subject 
in which he is most interested — himself. 

Of course if his name is Brown it will not 
232 



HOW TO HAVE A GOOD MEMORY 
be necessary for you to ask him the spelling, 
for the minute you hear it the little printers 
in your brain set it up in type and hold it be- 
fore your mind's eye. But if his name is a 
long or complicated one, do not consider that 
you have been introduced to him until you 
know how he spells it. 

3. With the spelling clear in your mind, 
give your concentrated attention to his face. 
Look at him, speak to him while you are 
looking at him and connect the name with 
that face. If you are ear-minded, it will help 
if you make him speak to you. Then you 
will have a voice to associate with the name. 

4. Do not keep reminding yourself of his 
name. Simply file it away in your memory, 
knowing you will remember it the next time 
you see him. 

5. Whenever you meet him make it a 
point to address him by name at the begin- 
ning of your conversation. 

Your ability to memorize will increase with 
the demands you make upon it. Rely on 
your memory. Place yourself in positions 
where it must save you, and it will do it. 
Memory is like every other faculty, — it de- 
velops with use. It grows with the demands 

233 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

made upon it. It comes to your rescue and 
reveals its highest powers only in emergen- 
cies. Two important general laws of mem- 
ory are: 

1. Don't worry about your memory. 

2. Never say to anyone, "I have a poor 
memory." 



234 




CHAPTER VI 
HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

The human will, that force unseen, 
The tribute of a deathless soul, 

Can hew the way to any goal, 

Though walls of granite intervene. 

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. 

F I were a fairy godmother and told 

you I would increase whichever 

one of your powers you named, 

you would probably say, "Give me 

more will power." 

Most of us feel that we know what we 
ought to do but think we lack the will power 
to do it. 

This is a mistake. Every person who is 
not feeble-minded has all the will power he 
needs to accomplish what he sets out to do. 
What he lacks is the habit of exercising his 
will power. 

Every individual of average intelligence has 
enough will power to accomplish almost any- 
thing, but he doesn't know it. 

Will power is human electricity. You have 
enough of this electricity generated in you to 

235 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
achieve the greatest things in life if you would 
keep the current on. 

The trouble with us all is that we fail to 
watch the current. We press the button oc- 
casionally and have moments of exultation 
when we feel that nothing is impossible, but 
we allow our minds to relax. The transcend- 
ent moment passes and we relapse into the 
dull feelings of the commonplace. 

In this lesson I am going to show you how 
to keep the current on all the time and how 
to increase it, when necessary, to the highest 
voltage. 

If you will follow these instructions you can 
do what you want to do, you can have what 
you want to have. You can make the trans- 
cendent moments permanent. You can be- 
come a leader, a dominant figure in the place 
in which you live. You can remake your life. 

Let me make clear at the outset that I do 
not promise you can do this in a day. I do 
not say you can have these rewards for noth- 
ing. You must pay a price for them. You 
must pay a big price. But what you will get 
for that price will be worth to you a thousand 
times more than it costs. 

Anything worth having costs. Nothing but 
236 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 
the undesirable comes free, I will give you 
the rules; it is up to you to do the rest. Fol- 
low them with even fifty per cent of faithful- 
ness and a year from today you will be a 
changed individual. You will have advanced 
several rungs in the ladder of success. There 
will be a conquering gleam in your eyes, more 
money in your purse, more respect in your 
soul, and your progress will be noted by all 
who know you. If you will give even half 
your application to these laws I promise you 
that ten years from now you will have made 
a name for yourself. 

We all want to be able to apply our will 
power. The man of strong will is more truly 
a man than all others. The woman of strong 
will is a superwoman. They are the rulers 
of the forces in their own world. They do 
what they set out to do. They know they 
have power. They use it to accomplish their 
aims. They are loved and admired above all 
others. When you come into contact with 
them you can fairly feel the force emanating 
from them. 

Before giving you the laws for building will 
power, let me tell you some interesting things 
about will power. 

237 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

AH the people in the world can be put into 
two classes with regard to will: those whose 
wills are overdeveloped, — the impulsive, dare- 
devil people with an over-supply of will pow- 
er, — and those of under-developed wills. The 
former have wills so strong they run away 
with them. The latter have weak wills. The 
wills of the former are too energetic. The 
latter are known as the "lazy willed." 

To be successful you must generate your 
will power to the point where you have as 
much as those of the over-active will, but con- 
trol it instead of letting it control you. You 
must learn to drive it instead of being driven 
by it 

In these two classes are eight different kinds 
of wills. Read this carefully and decide at 
the outset which is yours: 

INACTIVE WILL: Some people glide 
along through life without taking any real 
part in it. They do not seem able to stim- 
ulate themselves or to be stimulated. I have 
in mind the people who let others decide 
things for them, who have no fixed purpose 
and who seem incapable of making decisions. 

As decision is the first step in will making, 
these people seem never to have will power. 

238 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 
Have you noticed that some people evade 
every critical situation, refuse to accept re- 
sponsibility? Their aims seem to point in no 
direction; they refuse to take a stand even 
with regard to their own affairs. Have you 
noticed how this kind of person evades, how 
he sidesteps, how he seems to have no definite 
ideas or attitudes about things? 

Have you noticed the kind of person who 
lets his parents, wife, children or friends de- 
cide for him, or who waits for circumstances 
to decide? This is the inactive- willed individ- 
ual 

I know of one such young woman who is 
being pushed here and there like a chessman 
on the board, first by this person, then by that, 
because she refuses to assume responsibility. 
Like all people who wait for the trend of cir- 
cumstances instead of " trending circumstan- 
ces" themselves, she never gets anything she 
wants. 

He who relies on "circumstances" to bring 
him what he desires will get from those cir- 
cumstances only the things he does not de- 
sire. 

Very few desirable things happen to the 
man who waits on chance. To get anything 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

worth having ycu must go after it, keep after 
it and hunt it down. The crumbs of life are 
all that fall to him who sits under the table 
instead of taking his place at the head of the 
table. 

If you have a child who is inclined to let 
you make his decisions for him, start today 
to compel him to decide some things for him- 
self. 

I recently heard a mother say with pride: 
"1 am glad Harold is so obedient. He never 
decides anything. He leaves it all to me. He 
does just as I think best in everything. He is 
a great comfort to me. He is so unlike Mrs. 
Gregory's boy who can't be dissuaded from 
what he wants to do." 

Doubtless Mrs. Gregory envies Harold's 
mother the peace and comfort she is deriving 
from her amenable son. But fifteen years 
from now, if these two boys follow the paths 
on which they have started, this mother will 
be envying Mrs. Gregory. 

Unquestioned obedience and lack of definite 
opinions are attractive in babies, but in no 
one else. Life is ruthless. It rides over and 
grinds into the dust every person who cannot 
stand up for himself. 

240 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

Doubtless Mrs. Gregory's boy is the bane 
of her existence today, but he has ten chances 
to Harold's one when he leaves her side for 
the world. It takes definiteness, — knowing 
what you want and when you want it, — to 
win a place for one's self in this world. 

The bay who passively submits every ques- 
tion to his parents is a source of comfort as a 
baby, but a source of humiliation as a man, 
while the parents of the headstrong baby us- 
ually live to see the world bow to him as he 
made them bow. 

It is interesting to note that the big men and 
women of this world were all more or less 
incorrigible as school children. The submis- 
sive youngsters in their classes who used to 
get high marks in "deportment," are not 
heard of. 

If you find it easier to let anything or any- 
body make your decisions for you; if you are 
always asking to be told what to do about 
this or that; if you dislike to assume the bur- 
den of a decision, you belong in the inactive- 
willed class. 

This tendency, if unchecked, will bring you 
the remnants, the leavings, and the tail-ends 
of life. To overcome it, force yourself to see 

241 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

how colorless and uninteresting an individual 
you are getting to be. 

Start with the little things, such as deciding 
for yourself today where you will eat lunch, 
instead of waiting for your companions' ad- 
vice. Gradually work up to the big things 
in your life. 

I do not mean that you should refuse to 
listen to the advice of others, but I do mean 
that after hearing that advice you must decide 
on its merits. 

Beware of the weakness of always seeking 
advice. Remember you must live your own 
life. Remember also that no one can see your 
life as you can see it if you will look. After 
you are twenty years of age, if you keep your 
eyes and ears open, and your mind working, 
you are a better judge of the little things than 
anyone else. After you are thirty if you let 
others make your big decisions you are sliding 
down the toboggan to oblivion; you are going 
to be a nonentity. 

Most of those who are living at home after 
thirty are paying in unhappiness for their in- 
active wills. 

We know ourselves very little. Our real 
motives, desires and tendencies lie submerged 

242 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

in the depths of our subconscious. The wo- 
man who at thirty-five is still living at home 
usually believes in all sincerity what she tells 
you, that "she has never been able to get 
away because father and mother needed her." 

The truth of it usually is that she needed 
father and mother. Nine out of ten such wo- 
men belong in the class of the inactive willed. 
They cling to home and parents out of the 
subconscious fear of making decisions, facing 
responsibility or plunging into the maelstrom 
of life. They go to their graves without rec- 
ognizing this fact. They make a virtue of 
their vice. The world calls them "self-sac- 
rificing," forgetting, as Mark Twain said in 
his essay "What is Man," that "Every act of 
every human being is for the purpose of con- 
tenting his own spirit." 

If you are over thirty-five and find it easy to 
wander back home occasionally to spend a 
year or two, you are in danger. Your sub- 
conscious is secretly looking for something to 
lean on. Come home occasionally to visit, 
take care of your parents if necessary, by all 
means, but don't let them take care of you. 

You will never develop a great will living 
with your father and mother. Of course I 
am not speaking of those whose fathers and 

243 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
mothers live with them, who blaze the trail 
and face the world to shield their parents. I 
am speaking of those who frequently take up 
their position behind father's and mother's 
front trench. 

IMPULSIVE WILL. The second are those 
of the impulsive wills, who seem to "do things 
without thinking/' who have sudden attrac- 
tions and repulsions, who obey all of these 
attractions and repulsions, darting down this 
road and that without making headway on 
the main highway of their lives. I mean those 
who decide everything instantly on the im- 
pulse and who, for this reason, are always 
being compelled to rescind their decisions and 
make new ones. I mean those who throw 
prudence to the winds. 

If you are one of these, promise yourself 
you will not make a decision next time on the 
moment but will compel yourself to think it 
over. Even if you are sure you will ultimately 
make that decision, hold it in abeyance for a 
few minutes or hours. In this way you will 
train yourself to more sober judgments. 

OVERACTIVE WILLS. The third is the 
class called the over-active-willed. These are 
like the impulsive-willed but more diffuse. 

244 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

They make decisions on everything and begin 
the action on those decisions. They are the 
people whom we think of as having a "whirl- 
wind of plans" all the time, who have many 
irons in the fire, who lay out too many kinds 
of activities for themselves. 

The remedy for these is to realize that life 
is short, that the man who attempts too much 
gets nowhere. They should focus. If you 
belong to this class and will specialize, you 
will accomplish great things for this is one of 
the most powerful wills and one of the most 
desirable wlien properly directed. 

DISCOURAGED WILLS. The fourth is 
the "discouraged will/' — the will of the indi- 
vidual who has tried so many times and failed 
that he says now "I can't. I have no will 
power. It is no use. I have tried and failed 
so often and so completely there is no use 
trying again." 

These people see and know what they 
should do but refuse to try again. They are 
superior to those of the inactive wills, for they 
have made efforts. They deserve credit for 
their attempts. If you belong in this class, 
read the instructions in this lesson, adhere to 
them, and you can do what you want to do. 

245 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

EMOTIONAL WILLS. In the fifth sub- 
division are those known as "the emotional- 
willed." They are characterized by their in- 
tense feelings. These are the people who feel 
more than they think. They decide every- 
thing on their feelings and moods. Usually 
the mood or the emotion is so intense that 
they let it go at that. 

It is a well known psychological fact that 
we act only to rid ourselves of pent up ten- 
sion. 

When the emotional-willed finds a tempor- 
ary outlet for his feelings, he is inclined not 
to act on his decision. He is going down the 
street, sees a man injured, decides with tears 
in his eyes, to do something to help him, gets 
the man's name and determines to call at the 
hospital next day to find out what he can do 
for the man's family, but before the next day 
arrives he has so completely vented his emo- 
tion in telling the story to his friends, that he 
never goes to the hospital. 

If you are of an emotional will, don't make 
rash promises on your feelings, for feelings 
have a way of oozing out. Look yourself in 
the eye and realize that too much emotional 
tensity will prevent your putting anything 
through. 

246 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

The next time you find yourself deeply 
sympathetic, furiously angry or exultantly 
happy, don't let that emotional self in tem- 
porary control trick you into deciding things. 

It is always better to avoid making the de- 
cision you are not likely to carry out, because 
the failure to live up to it has a tendency to 
rob you of your self-respect. 

VACILLATING WILLS. The sixth class 
is closely allied with the emotionals and is 
called the "vacillating- willed." These people 
change their minds so often before action 
takes place that they accomplish very little. 
They waste their energy making decisions 
which they never carry out. The man who 
says, "I will see Jones today and make those 
arrangements/' and who ten minutes later 
says, "No, I won't do that, I'll wait and see 
Brown," usually lets the day go by without 
seeing either. 

I know a young man who has this kind of 
will. He plans on giving Thursday evening to 
attending a serious lecture on a subject in 
which he is interested, but when Thursday 
evening comes he says, "I don't feel in the 
mood for that tonight. I want to do some- 
thing eke. I want to be cheered up. I want 
a thrill. I am going to see some vaudeville." 

247 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
Before the performance is half over he leaves, 
regretting that the lecture is also over. 

If you classify yourself with the "vacillat- 
ing-willed," put the brakes on when you find 
yourself making decisions wholesale. Train 
yourself to look the ground over every morn- 
ing; to decide what is best to do. And then 
don't allow yourself to make too many 
changes. 

PRACTICAL WILLS. The seventh are 
the "practical-willed." These people see 
everything from the practical standpoint. 
They are the other extreme from the emo- 
tional and vacillating, but in the end get no 
more out of life. 

These are the people who live in the ruts 
and grinds of daily details and routine, who 
never have one grand overpowering purpose. 
These are the people who must do a certain 
thing on Monday, another on Tuesday, an- 
other on Thursday, another on Sunday, be- 
cause they decided, perhaps years ago, that 
it was advisable to do these things on these 
days. 

They pride themselves on their "will pow- 
er," forgetting that the will should be a ser- 
vant to reason, and if the reason has changed, 

248 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

the will current should be turned to fit the 
new conditions. 

These people are inclined to be narrow. 
They are the human penny-in-the-slot ma- 
chines. 

If you find yourself adhering to the sched- 
ules of five years ago without making im- 
provements in it; if you cannot adapt your- 
self to the exigencies of new situations ; if you 
refuse to bend to the plans of others occas- 
ionally, you do have will power. But you are 
paying more for it than it is worth. Its cur- 
rent will not carry you far unless you learn 
to direct it according to the needs and merits 
of each situation instead of to preconceived 
conditions. 

PURPOSIVE WILLS. The eighth and last 
subdivision is the one in which we all hope to 
be classed and in which to a great extent you 
may put yourself if you will follow the rules 
of this lesson. These are the "purposive- 
willed," — those who decide what they want to 
do after looking over the merits of the case, 
who gather their forces and get there. 

In this class are those who make up their 
minds as you make up a train, turn on the 
steam and go ahead to their destination. It is 

249 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

this kind of will which all great men and wo- 
men have, to some extent, possessed. 

Among the leading women of America 
whom I have had the honor of knowing per- 
sonally, I have found this purposive will strik- 
ingly exemplified by that great leader of the 
woman suffrage movement, Carrie Chapman 
Catt. That her purposive will has been to a 
great extent responsible for the emancipation 
of American women is a fact too well known 
to need an echo from me. But the following 
sidelight on will power in general is too sig- 
nificant to leave untold. 

A few years ago I had occasion to spend a 
few days in the little Iowa town whose chief 
pride is that this international figure spent her 
girlhood there. 

Inasmuch as a leading American magazine 
had, the month previous, printed a symposium 
of the opinions of prominent Europeans and 
Americans to the effect that Carrie Chapman 
Catt was the leading woman of the English 
speaking races, I was much interested in the 
psychology of her girlhood friends. 

One evening at a gathering of these I asked 
them in what way, if any, she seemed differ- 
ent from them when they were all children 
together. 

250 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 
"Nothing," they said. "Carrie was just 
like the rest of us as far as we could see, ex- 
cept this: whenever she made up her mind to 
do anything she always did it. She put 
through whatever she started." 

"How is it possible to build will power?" 
you ask. The answer is simple. It is also 
scientific. Your mind is living protoplasm and 
all living protoplasm can be trained. 

If I told you I could teach you how to de- 
velop your body muscles to the point of phy- 
sical efficiency you would not question it. In 
this lesson I am going to show you how to 
train your brain muscles. This is simpler than 
training your body muscles, because your 
brain has much greater susceptibility, is cap- 
able of far greater change and development. 

Will is directed desire. It is not a mere 
matter of thinking. It is thinking plus feeling. 
Thoughts are cold, but feelings are warm, 
alive, vital. 

The first law in building will power is: 
Learn to desire. You must not only wish, — 
you must want. You must stir your nature 
to its very depths if you would gain anything 
great. 

Desire, — emotion, — passion, — wanting, — 
251 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

demanding, — these are the things that create. 
Do not stop at thinking, wishing, yearning or 
longing. 

If your ambition is worth while, let it pos- 
sess you, give it a free rein. If it isn't worthy, 
get one that is. 

To create a thing you must want it with a 
burning want that recognizes no refusal, — 
that brooks no denial. 

Every leader of men is characterized by the 
intensity of his desires. You never hear him 
say he "wishes" he could do a thing. He 
says, "I want to do it." 

That wanting, that burning determination 
kindles desires in those around him, makes 
them want to help him get it, makes them fol- 
low him, and these in turn incite him to fur- 
ther action. 

Whenever you come in contact with a man 
of intense desire you feel the force radiating 
from him. You feel he has learned how to 
concentrate that force on things he wanted to 
do. 

Let me give you here the second law for 
building will power: Eliminate the non-es- 
sentials. The big man focuses his strength on 
the important things, the vital things. He 

252 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 
doesn't even see the superficial, unnecessary, 
trivial things that would sap his energy. 

Just as attention is the secret of Worry and 
visualization the secret of Self-Confidence, 
concentration is the big basic secret of Will 
Power. Any man who will keep his mind 
concentrated on what he wants will get it. 
This is due to the psychological law that our 
actions follow our thoughts. 

You express will power a hundred times a 
day. If you think you lack will power tell me 
what it is that enables you to get up in the 
morning; what it is that has made possible 
everything you have ever achieved. 

We will take a familiar example. You de- 
sire to move your foot — and it moves. Why? 
Because this wonderful mysterious force stored 
up within you is the electrical current you have 
released to move your foot. This current 
can only be generated by desire. 

Most people in the world do not know how 
to desire. They do not know what it is to be 
filled with an eager, intense craving, longing, 
ravenous desire that takes possession of them 
and makes them demand things instead of ask- 
ing for them. They are like sheep, rabbits or 
pigeons who sit meekly around while the 

253 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

strong ones of the race— those filled with these 
burning desires — gather up every good thing 
in sight. 

There is in this, as in all natural laws, a kind 
of justice. Those who do not exercise the 
force which nature has given them cannot peo- 
ple the world with strong souls. 

Any man with will power can open the door 
to what he wants. Most of us sit on the door- 
step crying for it to open. 

Will power is more than a mere faculty of 
the mind. It is a mighty attribute. Buxton 
said, "I am more certain the longer I live that 
the greatest difference between men, between 
the weak and the strong, the great and the 
small, is energy, — invincible determination, — 
a purpose once fixed, and then victory or death. 

"Will power will do anything that can be 
done in this world. No talents, no conditions, 
no opportunities, will make a two-legged man 
without it." 

Disraeli said, "I have brought myself, after 
long meditation, to the conviction that a hu- 
man being with a settled purpose can accom- 
plish it, that nothing can resist a will which 
will stake existence, if need be, on its fulfill- 
ment/' 

254 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

Donald G. Mitchell said, "Resolve is what 
makes a man manifest not puny resolve, not 
crude determination, not errant purpose, but 
that indefatigable will which treads down dif- 
ficulties and dangers as a boy treads down the 
heaving frost lands of winter, which kindles 
his eye and brain with a proud pulse beat. 
Will makes men giants." 

The secret of resolute will is found in per- 
sistence and determination. Learn tenacity of 
attention — concentration. 

You must learn to concentrate your will 
upon a thing and not allow it to be distracted 
or wander off until you have done what you 
have set out to do. This can be done by fol- 
lowing the triple methods set forth in this 
lesson. 

First, stir up your desire — make it live ; sec- 
ond, determine that you will do it, and third, 
act. Millions of men have done these things 
and so may you if you try. 

At first your greatest enemy will be habit. 
But habit is a thing that can be changed. 
Your habits are now enemy habits. If you 
will follow the rules of this lesson your habits 
will be your friends. 

The thing you call your weak will is not a 
weak will but a load of detrimental habits. 

255 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

You created these habits. You can demolish 
them* You created them by giving them your 
vote when you might have voted for some- 
thing better. 

Every individual is an Ego with two selves 
— a weak self and a strong self. The weak 
self always takes the easy way out; it is lazy, 
inert, made up of our lower instincts. The 
stronger self may be said to be composed of 
our higher instincts, such as aspiration and 
altruism. 

If you are enslaved to bad habits it is be- 
cause the ego of you has cast its vote with 
the weaker self so often your giving in to it 
has become more or less automatic. 

To develop your will do not attempt to 
change yourself in a day. 

"How shall I a habit break?" 

"As you did that habit make; 
As you gathered, you must lose; 
As you yielded, now refuse. 
Thread by thread the strands we twist, 
Till they bind us, neck and wrist; 
Thread by thread, the patient hand 
Must untwine till free we stand. 
As we builded stone by stone, 
We must toil unhelped, alone, 
Till the wall is overthrown." 
256 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 
Carlyle says, "Habit is the deepest law of 
human nature. It is our supreme strength as 
well as our greatest weakness. Let me go 
once, and my footsteps are an invitation to 
me a second time to go by the same way." 

Just as habit has been allowed to work 
against you it can now be made to work for 
you. Gather the strength to do today a few 
little things that are not easy and tomorrow 
they will be easier. 

William James said, "Do not try to destroy 
your bad habits by force. Make some good 
ones and they will destroy the others." 

To do this, first get control of the physical 
channels of expression — the channels thru 
which are expressed the mental states of self- 
confidence. Get control of the muscles thru 
which will power is expressed. Control your 
shoulders. Begin to put them back manfully 
instead of letting them sag. Get control of 
the muscles that hold your head up. Control 
your eyes. Gaze into the face of the world 
fearlessly. Get control of the muscles of 
your legs and walk firmly as a positive man 
does. Get control of the vocal organs and 
begin to speak in the vibrant tones which com- 
mand attention and respect. 

257 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

We do not know just how it happens but 
we do know that these things clear a channel 
through which will power expresses itself. 

Learn to keep your mind on what you want 
to do. When you have once focused your 
will on a thing hold it there. When it runs 
away, bring it back. Shut out the fringes. 

The Orientals have a word to express the 
concentration which gets things, — "one-point- 
ed." Put out of your mind all thoughts and 
ideas that are out of harmony with the big 
ideal of your life. 

At first you will have to fight against all 
manner of distracting thoughts but after a 
while you will acquire the habit of turning 
them away without conscious interruption. 

The best method for warding off undesir- 
able thoughts is to keep the mind filled with 
mental pictures or visualizations of yourself as 
doing the thing you wish to do. This adds oil 
to the flame of your desire. 

The art of concentration has up to this time 
been shrouded in occultism and mystery. This 
is due to the fact that its advocates had only 
empirical knowledge on the subject They 
have observed what could be accomplished by 
concentrative methods, but have had no 

258 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

comprehension of the reason for the results 
achieved. 

Absolute concentration means merely the 
massing of all your thoughts upon a single 
purpose. It means mental efficiency. It 
means drawing your mental fires to one point 
instead of merely shooting sparks into space. 

Ordinarily your desires and emotions scat- 
ter your energies and exhaust you to no pur- 
pose whatever. Organize these powers and 
the only question then to be answered is, 
"What shall I go after?" Mental coordina- 
tion, harmony and unity, such as will lift you 
out of all petty annoyances, can be yours. 
Your stream of consciousness is a living cur- 
rent. It is a swirling torrent of activity. Its 
powers have always been under-estimated. 

Lillian Hartman Johnson, Ph.D., eminent 
Mental Analyst and authority on the subcon- 
scious, says, "Your mental attitude must be 
made up of but two ideas: 'I am certain to 
succeed/ and, 'how/ If you will constantly 
maintain this attitude you will draw from the 
profoundest depths of your nature the plans 
and power for doing it." 

I will now give you the twenty-five specific 
rules by which you may build your will power 
and control your destiny. 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

No. 1. Awaken the power of willing by 
realizing that you can will to do a thing. In 
other words, come to a realization of the pow- 
er and possibilities of the human will, and that 
you possess one. 

Most people fail to develop will power be- 
cause they refuse to will to do a thing. At 
these moments open your mind and let 
the consciousness of your own ability be- 
gin to assert itself. Realize that you 
are the master of conditions; that you are a 
dynamo that is continually generating suf- 
ficient will power to do great things; recognize 
that you are in possession, — not your habits, 
not your weaker self, but the ego, — the "I," 
the soul of you. One moment after doing this 
you will begin to feel its potency, you will feel 
the blood coursing through your veins, you 
will sit up straighter, you will lift your chest, 
you will become conscious, — for some inex- 
plicable reason, — of resources in which you 
have hitherto had little confidence. 

No. 2. Decide what you want to do. "Look 
before you leap" is an old but sensible admo- 
nition. Always take a good look before plung- 
ing in. Exercise your judgment and do not 
be swayed too much by the judgment of 
others. Learn to put your hand to the plow 

260 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

and not turn back. Learn to control your will 
power so that it will not leap into action until 
you are ready for it to do so. 

When you have done this, — when you are 
sure this is the thing you want to do, — clinch 
your mind shut and lock it. Make up your 
mind that your mind is made up. Leave no 
reservations. Don't say, 'This is what I want 
to do but perhaps tomorrow I shall feel differ- 
ently." Don't decide until you are as sure as 
it is humanly possible to be, and then stick. 

No. 3. Gather together in your mind all the 
advantages you will gain from doing this 
thing. .Visualize yourself as doing it. See 
yourself enjoying the comforts, spending the 
money it would bring, meeting the friends, the 
pleasurable situations, accepting the honors, 
reaping all the rewards that it would bring. 

Say that the thing upon which you have 
bent your will is a college education. Keep 
yourself reminded of the many advantages of 
a college education. Picture to yourself the 
friendships you would make, the learning you 
would acquire, the person you would become 
with this new development. See yourself in 
college. Picture yourself as going through 
that four years, from your freshman days to 
your cap-and-gown-days. Let your mind 

261 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

dwell on the joys of intellectual growth, the 
fun you will have in athletic sports, general 
college activities, — everything from spreads to 
"exams." Remind yourself that the experi 
ences of those four years will change your life, 
will open the doors of opportunity and ro 
mance. Picture to yourself the upstanding 
clear-eyed, capable young person you are go 
ing to be at the end of those four years 
equipped with learning to meet the world. 

No. 4. Gather together in your mind all the 
penalties and punishments that would come 
from not doing this thing you wish to do. 
Dwell on them. Paint them in their darkest 
colors. Picture to yourself the embarrass- 
ments and humiliations which will accrue as 
a result of not going to college. Think of the 
opportuinties for promotion, advancement, — ■ 
financial and otherwise,— which you will be 
cheated out of if you do not get a college edu- 
cation. Recall how much less self-confidence 
the man without a college education feels; 
think how this handicap will affect your life; 
realize that you are going to miss pleasures 
and joys for which nothing can compensate. 

No. 5. Announce your plans to those who 
are truly interested in you. I want you to 
do this because it gives your pride a powerful 

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HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

incentive; having once declared you are going 
to college, you have something to live up to. 

One of the most conspicuous tricks of your 
weaker self is to get you not to let your friends 
know of your good resolutions. You give 
yourself all manner of reasons for keeping 
still, but the real fact is that this miserable 
little weaker side of your nature has whispered 
to you, "Don't tell anybody, then if you fail 
it will be no disgrace." This gives you every 
chance to lose. It is leaving the back door un- 
locked, ready for your desertion if you become 
too cowardly to go out the front. 

I do not mean by this that you should go 
about publishing your plans to everybody. 
Never tell them to any but those who are in 
sympathy with you, who like you and are in- 
terested in you. You will then not only be im- 
pelled to do what you have set out to do in 
order to keep their respect, but will be inspired 
by their belief in you and their desire to see 
you win. 

No. 6. Weld the thought of doing to the 
action of doing by the only thing that ever 
welds anything, — feeling. Watch a blacksmith 
when he is trying to weld together two pieces 
of iron. He builds a fire under them. Mere 
thoughts are cold things, but feelings are alive. 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Let yourself feel intensely about this thing 
you want to do. The white heat of emotion 
will compel you to act. Feeling arouses the 
will) and the will stimulates action. These two 
act and react upon each other. They should 
work in unison. The trained individual has 
both under control, pulling together like a well 
trained team. 

No. 7. Avoid all friends, situations and con- 
ditions that would interfere with what you 
wish to do. If you have been associating with 
superficial people, who care for nothing but 
dances, movies, parties, and fun, and who are 
out of sympathy with the idea of a college edu- 
cation, begin to give them less of your time. 
Understand them, give them tolerance, never 
. feel bigoted or superior. But learn how to stay 
away from them. 

Refuse to make engagements with anyone 
whose ideals, standards and convictions would 
pull you away from your aim. Remember the 
legend of Ulysses, who induced his companions 
to stop up their ears with wax lest they be 
fascinated by the song of the sirens. It is much 
easier to listen to the songs of the sirens of 
idleness, ease, pleasure and dissipation. But 
it eventually takes you down, not up. 

No. 8. Put yourself in the way of friends, 
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HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

situations and conditions conducive to your 
aim. This is not difficult. If you are truly in- 
terested in a college education you will attend 
the lectures, visit the libraries, and frequent the 
other places where college people, and those 
who hope to be college people, are to be found. 
You will soon make new friends, friends who 
will aid you, encourage you, inspire you. 

If it is necessary that you leave the town in 
which you live, or even your family, in order 
to find congenial companions, do so. Go any- 
where, at any cost, to surround yourself with 
the things which shall help and not hinder. 

No. 9. Start today. Take at least one step 
toward your goal. Don't try to take too long 
a step. Start at the easiest end of this thing 
you wish to do. Do not attempt the hardest 
part at first, only be sure that you do some- 
thing right now. Do not attempt to start to 
college today, but do not let the sun go down 
without at least writing a letter, looking up a 
catalogue or doing some other thing toward a 
real start. 

Do not let the enormity of your task dis- 
courage you. The greatest struggle is always 
at the beginning, so start slowly. Gird on your 
armor, grasp your sword, but don't attempt to 
finish the whole fight in one day. Plan to in- 

265 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

crease the tasks each day. Plan to do some- 
thing bigger and bigger each week. Do not be 
like the man who wanted to jump the ditch. 
Each day he got to the ditch and each day ran 
back for a fresh start. 

No. 10. Do this thing one day at a time. 
Most of those who fail to develop will power 
have been frightened out by the feeling of the 
"unendingness" of the task. Under the weight 
of all the future, they succumbed before they 
started. Don't let the thought of the "forever- 
ness" enter your mind. Stand up to it one day 
at a time. 

Prof. James said, "The man who attempts to 
do only today's work today can accomplish 
wonders." It is the convulsive worker who 
breaks down. It is the man who lets the 
thought of the tomorrows get into his mind 
who cannot live up to today. 

Never be in a hurry; do not let anxiety and 
solicitude for results terrorize you. Work sys- 
tematically, — economize effort. Waste no 
time regretting the past or fearing the future. 

No. 11. Do not let exceptions occur. Be- 
ware of your weaker self when it whispers, 
"You have proven you can do this, now let's 
take a little vacation." The actual interrup- 
tion would not always do you harm. It is the 

266 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

memory of the exception which poisons. It 
makes you lose faith in yourself. Having 
once allowed a break in the chain, you feel 
less equal to building a strong one. You are 
ashamed; you are conscience-stricken; you 
are fully aware, after it is done, that it was 
your weaker self that induced you to do it. 
This realization is disintegrating. Remember, 
one interruption can undo the good work of 
weeks. It is like a ball of twine. The care- 
lessness of an instant can unwind it, and it 
takes a long time to rewind. 

No. 12. As a reminder of your will power, 
let every good thought for the first few days 
express itself in some kind of action. At the 
same time, see how many unpleasant or un- 
kind thoughts you can inhibit. Every good 
thought which evaporates without action 
leaves you weaker, while the conquering of an 
unkind thought gives you strength. 

No. 13. Every day do something you do 
not like to do. Everyone, even the weak- 
est, can do things they like to do, — pleasant, 
agreeable things. But these are not the proof 
of real will power. 

Nothing will encourage you more, nothing 
will prove to you your own powers like com- 
pelling yourself to do something disagreeable. 

267 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Prof. James advised his students systematic- 
ally to exercise themselves in the direction 
of doing some particular things for no other 
reason than that they preferred not to do 
them, even if the task be nothing more than 
giving up one's seat in a street car. He said: 
"Doing daily a disagreeable thing is like pay- 
ing the premiums of insurance on one's prop- 
erty. It is laying up reserve resources for the 
day of need." 

But it is even more necessary that you 
keep up your will insurance. Your property 
may never burn down, but the emergencies 
in your own life are inevitable. Only the man 
who has trained himself to do the hard thing 
can meet that emergency when it arrives. 

James said: 'The men who have attained 
great success have in nearly every case so 
trained their wills by doing things whether 
they liked them or not that they could under- 
take difficult or disagreeable tasks with a min- 
imum of effort. They have acquired the hab- 
it." 

No. 14. When you fail, see to it that your 
will never condones nor consents. Let dis- 
gust for yourself fill you. But not discourage- 
ment. There is a world of difference between 
disgust and discouragement. There is no rea- 

268 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

son for discouragement. Nothing was ever 
done in a day. 

No. 15. When successful, tell yourself and 
your friends of the little victories you have 
achieved. Do not be conceited about it, mere- 
ly tack up a little bulletin in your own mind. 
It will give you new pride in yourself. It will 
give your friends new faith in you, and their 
faith in you will act as a constant urge to you. 

No. 16. Avoid all stimulants. They slip 
the bolt off your will. I know a woman who 
says she doesn't dare trust herself to go shop- 
ping after she has had black coffee for lunch. 
"I spend money like a drunken sailor/' she 
says. Many students have told me how var- 
ious stimulants affect them, and it is always 
for the worst, not for the better. 

No. 17. Keep before your mind the mem- 
ory of the feelings you experienced the last 
time you failed. Many a man has been kept 
at his helm, not because he could not face the 
prospect of his failure, but because he could 
not stand a repetition of the sufferings he 
underwent at his previous defeats. 

No. 18. Keep before your mind the mem- 
ories of how you felt when you won. Live 
again those feelings of exultation, glory and 
triumph, than which life holds no greater joy. 

269 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

No, 19. Keep your mind centered on the 
thing you wish to do. No matter how great 
a break may have occurred, bring it back and 
put it to work again. Eventually it will know 
better than to wander away. 

No. 20. Set aside the last ten minutes of 
each day to revisualize your desire, to live 
over again your reasons for making your de- 
cision. 

One of the best aids to will power is to 
make a list, during this ten minutes, of the 
things to do next day. Look over this list 
each evening and scratch off those done. 
Transfer those undone to the next day's sheet. 
If you have an ounce of pride you cannot 
bear to leave many of these undone tasks to 
stare you in the face. 

No. 21. Never mistake stubbornness for 
strength. Stubbornness is the result of pre- 
judice, ignorance or misdirected energy. The 
stubborn man cannot yield. The strong man 
knows that yielding is sometimes the greatest 
proof of strength. 

The Grand Canyon was made by trickling 
drops of water. Sometimes it is necessary to 
turn slightly aside in order to achieve one's 
ultimate goal, just as the little drops of water 

270 



HOW TO BUILD WILL POWER 

had to turn aside and wind their way around 
the pebbles, rocks and boulders in the con- 
struction of that sublimest masterpiece. 

The man with the strong will knows how to 
yield. He knows that yielding sometimes 
means stepping aside to get a better view or a 
stronger foothold. The stubborn man will 
not bend nor stoop and often his stiff attitude 
breaks him. A willow bends when a storm is 
on, but bobs up and keeps growing after it 
has passed. A ship has to turn out of its 
course to avoid rocks and icebergs. 

The big man doesn't push ahead into the 
very face of trouble just because his original 
path pointed that way. He weaves, winds, 
stoops, climbs over, goes around, under, and 
gets by. 

No. 22. Make every act one of vigor. Do 
not do anything halfheartedly. Do not hold 
back. Play fair with yourself. Merely going 
through the motions of what you have decided 
to do is cheating yourself. When you have 
decided to do a thing, not only do it but do it 
well, do it hard, do it to a finish. In no other 
way can the maximum of strength be ac- 
quired. 

No. 23. Keep the realization that you are 
271 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

winning. See yourself as the man who is con- 
quering himself. Never admit defeat. 

No. 24. Do not relax in your efforts. When 
you get to the places where you feel incapable 
of making further headway just then, do not 
give up. At least hold your own. Be like 
the swimmer who, when he reaches an ad- 
verse tide, manages to hold himself up though 
he may make no progress. 

No. 25. Note with what surprising ease 
you do these things which you considered 
were going to be hard. 

Keep yourself reminded of the psychologi- 
cal fact that it is never the doing of a thing 
that makes it difficult; it is our anticipation of 
it. In this way you will acquire a conscious- 
ness of your own self-mastery. 

If you will follow these rules you can train 
the vast forces of your mind to act in accord- 
ance with your will. You can build will 
power. Thus, and thus only, have all things 
worth while been done in this world. 



272 



CHAPTER VII 
HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

"If I just had a chance !" There are chances aplenty 
Right close to our fingertips, day after day. 

For each opportunity seized there are twenty 
Overlooked and permitted to wander away. 

And while we are waiting for some one to offer 

Ways for winning success by some "push-button" plan, 

With the splendid rewards she is eager to proffer. 
Opportunity sighs: "If I just had a man!" 

HE subject of money-making is an 
interesting one for many reasons. 
It is the one upon which more 
thoughts are centered, about which 
more lies are told, and concerning which more 
deception is practiced than any other in the 
world. 

All of us want to make money, — but few 
people will admit it. 

This is due to the false training we receive. 
From early childhood we are taught that to 
want money is an ignominious ambition; that 
it is something to be ashamed of. 

Very young or very gullible people believe 
in the sincerity of those who preach this 

273 




PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

doctrine, but at along about eleven years they 
begin to wake up. They discover gradually 
that the double standard of morals is nothing 
to the double standard of money. They begin 
to discover that underneath all the piety there 
runs a burning desire for this "root of all 
evil." They discover later that those who 
prate oftenest, loudest and longest against 
money-making have an eagle-eye focused on 
making all the money they can themselves. 

I remember I was about nine when a reali- 
zation of it came to me. 

One Sunday I was passing the collection 
basket in church, as a substitute for one of 
the ushers who was not there that day. 

In my section there was one of the well-to- 
do "pillars." I knew he would drop in 
enough to make my basket total as much as 
others, because I had heard him make such 
feeling talks on "the higher good," and the 
sin of "seeking the things of this world." So 
I was looking most intently for his donation. 

From that day to this I have refused to 
lean too heavily on "pillars." He put in a 
pewter slug the size of a fifty cent piece! 

If you have read this book carefully up to 
this point (which you have not, for you are 
reading this chapter first!), you have doubt- 

274 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

less noticed I do not deal in platitudes. I have 
not once said, "Genius is an infinite capacity 
for taking pains/' or that "Virtue is its own 
reward." 

Having sidestepped these popular pitfalls 
thus far, I am going to see if I can't be sincere 
with you to the end. 

I want to make money. I want to make 
lots of money and more money every year. 
And I believe I will, for my income has been 
increasing annually for several years, due 
largely to the fact that all who have dealings 
with me advise their friends to patronize me. 

When I ask them why they give me so 
much free advertising, they say, "Because you 
are honest with us. You don't try to catch 
us with this modern bait about 'human ser- 
vice.' This makes us trust you at the start. 
At the finish we tell our friends about your 
lecture courses and publications because we 
have gotten so much more than our money's 
worth." 

I relate this here for two reasons. First, 
because I believe in advertising, and, second, 
because my own experience has proved to me 
that it is neither necessary nor advisable to 
deceive people to make money. 

275 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Therefore the first rule for money-making 
is, — don't lie about it. 

My reason for this first reason is, — if you 
can standi bedrock honesty — it doesn't pay. 

Other people are just as smart as you are. 
Don't be an ostrich. Don't stick your head 
in the sand, imagining no one can see you. 
Everybody is on to you, but don't worry. He 
is on to you for a reason which gives him 
nothing on you, — he is after money himself. 

The poets and singers praise the beauties of 
poverty, the joys of the simple life and tell us 
about the emptiness of riches. But even as 
they say it, they are wondering where they 
are going to get next month's rent and long- 
ing for the riches they condemn. 

There is no glamour over poverty except 
to the man who has climbed out of it. There 
is no halo around hardship except to him who 
has emancipated himself from it. 

When you hear rich Mr. So and So declare 
he'd "love to go back and live over again the 
early days when he was poor," do not doubt 
him. He means it. He thinks what he wants 
is the struggle, but it isn't. It is only that he 
thinks how easily he could bear the struggle 
with today's riches in mind. He feels that 

276 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

with the certain knowledge that today's riches 
were on the way he could stand anything. 

One can stand almost anything if he knows 
it is only temporary. Poverty and struggle 
have a glamour around them only when you 
know they won't last, only when you know 
the reward is inevitable. Then the thought 
of the reward sustains. The millionaire would 
not for anything return to the days when he 
had to save pennies if the fairy godmother 
would not permit him to take along the cer- 
tainty of today's wealth. 

If you want to make money, don't apol- 
ogize for it. 

Sarah H. Young, well known efficiency ex- 
pert says: "Wanting what money brings is 
a laudable ambition. Nobody wants money 
for its own sake. Dollars, as dollars, are as 
valueless as so many pieces of iron. 

"We want what money represents — the 
comforts it will provide, the freedom it as- 
sures, the self-expression it guarantees. 

"The desire for these things is what dis- 
tinguishes modern men and women from cave 
men and women. Without the urge for these 
things, — esthetic surroundings, self-expression 
and individual freedom, — civilization would 
be unknown. We would still be living in 

277 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

caves, eating raw meat from the bones of 
wild beasts. There would be no art, no lit- 
erature, no education, no invention, no human 
liberty, no ideals. 

"These are the hungers and cravings that 
have urged man up from the sod; that have 
impelled him to face hardships, danger and 
death, — and thus grow." 

No organism develops except under pres- 
sure. We are so full of laziness and inert- 
ness that there would have been no develop- 
ment had it not been for this pressure from 
within. There would be no such thing as evo- 
lution. 

The stage to which any creature has evol- 
ved can be pretty accurately measured by his 
ambitions and aspirations. The man who is 
content to live in poverty, dirt and sordid- 
ness, — the man who is willing to work all his 
life at some other man's game instead of his 
own, does not greatly advance civilization. 

The man who turns his back on the lure of 
laziness and faces the battle with the world, 
as every man does who makes money, proves 
thereby his higher degree of evolution. 

To such men and women we owe the culti- 
vation of the fields, the clearing of the forests, 
the building of cities, the invention of the 

278 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY 
steam engine, the telegraph, telephone, wire- 
less, aviation, all the vehicles of human prog- 
ress. 

Because a few safe blowers, capitalists, etc., 
have used their brains to get money uneth- 
ically does not alter these facts. 

Every great thing is carried to the point of 
abuse by some. Money-making on the stu- 
pendous scale practiced by a few multi-mil- 
lionaires no more discredits the normal money- 
making instinct than the over-eating of a few 
gluttons discredits the instinct of eating. All 
extremes are dangerous to the individual and 
to the race. 

For both these reasons money-making as it 
is practiced today by combines, to the en- 
slavement of the workers and the fleecing of 
the consumer, must be and will be abolished. 

This lesson is no brief for the man who gets 
money dishonestly, be he porch-climber or 
magnate. This lesson is for all who desire the 
best life can give us, who believe we are en- 
titled to the best and who are willing to win it 
in the open by honorable methods. It is for 
those who realize that nothing worth while 
comes free. It is for those who realize, how- 
ever, that everything, even money, comes eas- 
ier than we anticipate, if we only go after it. 

279 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Hubbard said: "Blessed is he who is not 
looking for a soft snap for he is the only one 
who shall find it." 

Since there is nothing new under the sun, 
you will find little that is new in these rules. 
If you are expecting to be let into some won- 
derful secret whereby you may make money 
over night in an easy, leisurely way, you are 
booked for disappointment. 

There are no wonderful secrets about mak- 
ing money. There are certainly no easy, care- 
free, comfortable roads to the land of Wealth. 
This is the first thing you must realize. 

The rules for making money are simple 
rules, but they are not easy to follow. It 
takes stamina to make money. It takes back- 
bone and jawbone rather than wishbone, it 
takes will power. 

But do not let this depress you. "Will 
power," as Arnold Bennett said, "Is the chief 
thing that differentiates you from the cat by 
the fire." 

If you prefer the cat-by-the-fire existence to 
the rich rewards of effort, give up this chap- 
ter. Also give up the hope of ever getting 
anything worth while in this world. 

Above I told you that the first step in mak- 
ing money is to be straightforward concerning 

280 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

your money-making aspirations. The money- 
making aspiration is the mark of the man who 
has evolved beyond the cat-by-the-fire stage. 

The money a man makes is one of the 
truest measures of his service to mankind. 

The world is full of people who want all 
kinds of things, who need all kinds of things 
for material and spiritual advancement. They 
stand ready and anxious to pay in real dollars 
and other rewards the man or woman who will 
supply those needs. Whenever you see a pen- 
niless man you see a man who is not produc- 
ing much, if anything, for the satisfaction of 
these needs, the alleviation of these sufferings, 
or inspiration for the battles of the people OF 
TODAY. 

Because they are the most important words 
1 have used up to this time, let me impress 
upon you the two words in that last sentence. 
You may paint the pictures, write the poems, 
preach the religious and economic doctrine for 
which future generations will immortalize 
you, but these achievements will never bring 
you financial independence unless the world 
OF TODAY wants them. 

"Fame is the food of the tomb." The man 
who prefers food today to these ashes of im- 
mortality must do something, say something, 

281 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

make something or sell something THE PEO- 
PLE OF HIS DAY AND AGE want. They 
will pay money only for what they want, not 
for what future generations will want. 

That "Three cities claimed Homer dead 
through which the living Homer begged his 
bread" is tragic, but just as true today as it 
was three thousand years ago. 

The roads of yesterday are strewn with the 
bodies of martyrs whose works vastly benefit 
us. We are today martyring other men and 
women equally good, equally great, whose 
ideas and productions will vastly advance pos- 
terity. We are starving some of them to death 
just as our predecessors starved the good and 
great of their day. 

All this is a sad commentary, but bemoan- 
ing it does not alter human nature. The man 
who wishes to make sufficient money to ob- 
tain the refinements, self-expression and free- 
dom he craves while he is still alive to enjoy 
them must produce something this generation 
wants. He must not ask that it pay him for 
a thing its great-great-grandchildren will want. 

Each generation insists on spending its 
money for the things that meet its particular 
needs, and leaves its descendants to pay their 

282 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

own bills when they get here. That the great 
poet, painter, reformer or teacher will not live 
that long makes no difference. 

"Besides," human nature argues, "how do 
we know that posterity will want what this 
man has to offer? Only time can tell whether 
he is right or wrong. There is no way of dis- 
tinguishng between the false and the true 
gods. We will leave it to the future." 

The false ones pass; the true have laurels 
laid on their graves down through the ages. 

This lesson is for the man and woman who 
believes that it is as worthy to meet the needs 
of today's children as those of tomorrow's, 
and that the benefactors of mankind have a 
right to the good things with which God has 
filled the world. 

Keep your eyes, ears and mind open. Find 
out what the world wants, — the trend of the 
times, — what the latest needs are from neck- 
wear to aviation, and see if you can't devise 
something, improve something, invent some- 
thing, organize something, or promote some- 
thing to meet these needs. 

To do this, recognize the fact that you were 
born with talents for doing some of these much 
easier than others. Find out what these in- 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

born trends are, — what you are best fitted for, 
— and then capitalize them. 

Don't be afraid of an idea because it is your 
own idea. As Emerson said, "A man dis- 
cards his thoughts simply because they are 
his." 

All the big money is made by the men who 
are willing to take at least some risk and 
blaze trails. Don't wait till you see others 
breaking the trail before you bring forth your 
vision, for if you do, you get what followers 
always get, — the leavings. 

The big rewards never go to those who seek 
the sheltering safety of the second trench, no 
matter how hard they may actually work 
after they start. Great rewards are never 
given for work but for daring. 

Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the tel- 
ephone, was asked what he would say were 
he asked to put into twenty words his best 
advice to young men who wished to make 
money. He said: "I would say to young men 
and young women, 'Get an idea of your own, 
stick to it, and put all your heart and soul into 
it every day.' " 

Cultivate your initiative. The world re- 
serves its supreme rewards for but one thing 
— initiative. 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

The next big step is to eliminate worry 
about money. Turn back to Chapter II of this 
volume and learn exactly how to do it. 

A common sense care for your financial 
future is necessary, but worry over it only de- 
creases your financial ability. In these days 
of keen competition, with everybody else 
wanting the money you are after, the man 
who gets it is the one whose mind is given to 
making it, not worrying for fear he won't 
make it. 

The man whose attention is centered on the 
fear of poverty, brings about the very poverty 
he fears. Your actions match your predom- 
inant thoughts. The man whose thoughts are 
of poverty acts like poverty. Nobody dares 
to trust a high-salaried job to him. 

High salaries are never paid for manual 
work. They are paid to the men who do 
effective mental work, — thinking out con- 
structive ideas. 

Now the man whose mental machine is 
clogged up with poverty-worries is not in good 
running order. What you accomplish is due 
to the working out of ideas. 

A great financier said to me once, "From the 
neck down a man is worth $3 a day. From the 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
neck up a man may be worth anywhere from 
$10,000 to several hundred thousand dollars 
a year." 

Another millionaire is fond of saying, "The 
difference between the hod carrier and the 
$50,000-a-year man is that the hod carrier 
works his hod and the other man works his 
head." 

A friend of J. Pierpont Morgan once said 
to him, "I need a man with ideas. If you 
should find such a man and will send him to 
me I will pay him $50,000 a year." "If I find 
that man," said Morgan, "one who can be eyes 
and ears for me when Pm not there you will 
never lay eyes on him, for I shall pay him 
$100,000 a year." 

Right here is a good place to tell you a 
great psychological law: 

Ideas come to us as the result of concen- 
trating on the thing we want. I don't mean 
that you must cut yourself off from your 
friends and family, shut yourself up in a quiet 
room and fasten your conscious mind on what 
you want, though a few moments of this daily 
is most effective. 

I mean rather the constant thinking in the 
back of your mind about the thing you want, 
plus a striving after it. 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

Phychologists have named this chamber in 
the back of your mind the subconscious. It 
is your "silent partner/ ' It takes orders from 
you. It will work on whatever subject you 
wish. What is more, it will work on that 
subject until you tell it to stop. 

Your subconscious is about 90 per cent of 
your mind. When you worry, this great 
working force is expended in negative, de- 
structive work. All of its strength is used up 
in this way. There is then none left with 
which to plan out the things you want. 

If you expect to get what you want, instead 
of what you fear, change the standing order 
you have given to your subconscious. Instead 
of letting it spend its time loafing in the movie 
theatre of your mind, — in that chamber of 
horrors where your fears are on parade, — or- 
der it to come out into the sunshine right now 
and get busy figuring out ways and means to 
get what you want 

If you are worried everybody knows it. 
Nothing fails like failure. Stop giving failure 
thoughts a place in your mental power house. 

Study the successful man. You will note 
that under all circumstances he radiates suc- 
cess. He does not always have the material 
facts and reasons justifying it. But material 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

things are born of spiritual things, and the 
man who, in the days of no business, keeps up 
a successful front ultimately has a successful 
business. 

In this connection we can mention the mat- 
ter of personal appearance and its influence on 
success. A young man once asked an Ameri- 
can millionaire how he should dress to be suc- 
cessful. 

"As though you were already successful/' 
he answered. And that is the law of self-con- 
fidence and of all success, — to act the part if 
you want to make it real. 

The effect that your dress, your grooming 
and your general appearance have on you is 
fully as important as its effect on others. 

No one has ever yet fully defined the psy- 
chology of dress, but it is certain there is a 
mysterious relationship between one's per- 
sonal appearance and his self-respect. It not 
only helps or hinders success but helps or 
hinders character and moral courage. 

"Clean linen is/' as a great writer once said, 
"a source of spiritual strength second only to 
that of a clean conscience." I know a Mil- 
waukee woman who will not meet anyone she 
wishes to impress without a red rose and im- 
maculate white gloves. 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

One of the most successful men of my ac- 
quaintance tells me that whenever he has a 
big deal to put through, even if it comes in 
the middle of the day, he goes home, takes a 
shower bath, shaves and dresses mroughout 
with fresh garments. "This may sound silly 
to you," he said. "I laugh at myself for doing 
it, but I have found it pays." 

Even if you are not like this man, and do 
not see the importance of dress, you must take 
it into consideration. 

If you are not naturally particular about 
yourself; if you are inclined to be a little 
slack or slovenly; if you are careless one or 
two mornings a week and hurry off to work 
without the usual touches to your toilet, you 
are paying a high price for it. 

You cannot afford this handicap. Dress 
makes a tremendous difference in your chances 
for success. Don't ignore it. One of the best 
investments you can make is in putting up 
a good appearance. 

Say what you will about the unimportance 
of clothes in comparison with the man him- 
self, we all realize that our clothes do cut a 
big figure in peoples' estimate of us. We 
know that the impression other people get of 

us has a far-reaching influence on our lives. 

289 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Clothes play a leading part in our general ap- 
pearance and our general appearance is re- 
sponsible for a big part of that impression. 

Clothes do not make the man, but good 
clothes have got many a man a good job that 
he never would have had otherwise. And a 
man with a good job has a chance to become 
a better man. 

Your personal appearance, your dress, your 
manner, your grooming, your haircut and hair 
dress are the front windows which advertise, 
as all show windows do, the stock of goods 
inside. 

The way a merchant displays his goods is 
known to be the first step in salesmanship. 
If his windows are filled with soiled, out-of- 
date wares, if they do not indicate care, sys- 
tem and order, you expect to find the same 
characteristics inside. 

Now you are a salesman. Every person in 
the world is a salesman of something, whether 
he is selling commodities or not. 

You are anxious to succeed; you wish to 
get a good position, — in other words, sell your 
services, — you want to make the most of 
yourself, — that is, market your abilities most 
effectively and for the highest possible price; 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 
you want friendship, love and marriage. All 
love and friendship are exchanges, and there- 
fore a kind of salesmanship. 

Where people place you in their estimation 
has a powerful effect on your career. They 
place an estimate upon you, consciously or un- 
consciously, the instant they lay eyes on you, 
and it is never as easy to change that estimate 
afterward as it would have been to make the 
right impression the first time. 

Because your personal appearance is the 
first thing people see about you it should be 
worthy of you, of your best and highest self. 
I do not mean extravagantly handsome dress; 
I mean the opposite, — refined, inconspicuous 
but tasteful dress, — and perfect cleanliness. 

Because the eye is the favorite sense-mes- 
senger and the quickest, you must first please 
the eye of the other fellow. Then you must 
please his ear, and later, if you get past these 
boys in the front office, he may give you a 
chance to prove your worth, — to show him 
who and what you are. 

Many a superior man, and countless super- 
ior women, have failed miserably because they 
never passed muster with these under-secretar- 
ies. 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Many a man has failed because he tried to 
be too economical. He did not keep fresh- 
ened up with clean linen; he attempted to 
save on his clothes by having them mended 
and pressed when he should have gone with- 
out food if necessary to buy a new suit. 

Wearing shabby clothing and soiled collars 
to save laundry bills has cost hundreds of men 
their chances for promotion and ease. 

Few people realize what a tremendous in- 
fluence appearances have on their future. 
They do not realize that when they apply for 
a position the mind of their would-be employer 
is working at lightning-like speed, sizing up 
whether or not this applicant would be an as- 
set or a liability to his business. No matter 
how many letters of introduction you carry 
nor who has written them, they will not get 
you the place if your personal appearance is 
a poor advertisement for him. 

In Philadelphia I saw a sign over the em- 
ployment manager's window which read, "No 
seedy-looking people wanted here." That this 
must have been a cruel blow to the poor seedy 
ones who most needed the jobs didn't alter the 
fact. ^ 

And I thought as I looked at it, "The world 
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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

is like that; it has this announcement over its 
doorway in letters so big that all who run may 
read." 

I do not say it is right. I say most emphat- 
ically it is not right. The standards are 
wrong. But they are here. 

My task in this lesson is not to discuss 
ethics, — I reserve that for another book, — but 
to show you how to achieve happiness and 
success here and now, in this world in which 
you live. 

As Time is measured, you have but a day 
to live and the world is not going to be made 
right in a day. 

If you would be a true success, lift your 
voice for the ideal world. Keep working for 
something better for all humanity but prove 
your right to lead humanity by fulfilling its 
requirements today. 

If you honestly want to better the world, 
meet the tests it gives today, and tomorrow 
it will listen to you. 

If you have a message and not just a 
grouch you are willing to pass through the 
world's acid test, — the test of personal 
achievement, — to earn the chance to deliver 
that message. 

293 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
If you do not care enough for it thus to sac- 
rifice yourself you can't blame the world for 
not being willing to sacrifice itself. 

The world is a big place. There are bil- 
lions of people in it. To win their belief in 
you, you must set them the example. You 
must believe in yourself. 

I know a young man who has been trying 
for months to get a situation. He is always 
turned down. He does not understand why. 
I could quickly tell him. He doesn't talk like 
a success. He doesn't look like one. He is 
trying to dispose of something which he does 
not present in an attractive form. People feel 
that he doesn't believe in it himself. 

Your prospective employer, buyer, or friend 
is watching you with an "eagle eye." He is 
looking for victory in your face, — not defeat; 
he is looking for evidences of ability, — not in- 
competence. 

Every one is after 100 per cent men and 
women and will take no others if they can 
possibly avoid it. Every employer wants 
cheerful, optimistic, self-confident employes 
around him; men and women who bear the 
earmarks of efficiency; who are good walking 
ads for his business. His trained eye tells 

294 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY 
him instantly whether you are going to im- 
press his customers as a winner or a loser. To 
get a good position you have got to convince 
your prospective employer that he will have a 
prize in you. 

One of the biggest American writers has 
said: "Talent is sure of a market, but it must 
not cower at home and expect to be sought 
out. 

"There is a good deal of can't in the criti- 
cism of the aggressive, forward-pushing man. 
It is complained that retiring men of worth 
are passed over with neglect. Sad as this is 
for the retiring, worth-while people, it usually 
happens that the forward-pushing men have 
the qualities of activity and accomplishment 
without which worth is a gold mine that can't 
be operated. A barking dog is sometimes 
more valuable than a sleeping lion." 

"Egotist" is the term you like to apply to 
the man who has done more than you. As a 
matter of fact, it is probably only egoism that 
has placed him where he is. 

If his being there worries you so much that 
you find yourself constantly accusing him, the 
chances are that your own egotism is at the 
bottom of your resentment. 

295 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Jealousy is the confession of your own in- 
feriority. 

A certain amount of good healthy egotism 
is necessary to the success of any man or 
woman. As long as it is not used to belittle 
others it is a good thing. It acts as the spur 
without which few great steps would have 
been made in the world's progress. 

In these busy days men have no time to 
hunt about in obscure corners for retiring 
merit. They find it more effective to take a 
man at his own estimate till time shall prove 
otherwise. 

The world admires manliness and courage. 
It admires womanliness, and true womanli- 
ness in this day and age means the self-confi- 
dence of the winner. 

The world has little use for the timid, 
whether male or female. It passes by the 
self-effacing people who have an air of apolo- 
gizing for living. 

Leaders in every walk of life must have 
lieutenants who also know how to lead. 
Therefore they select for the big places the 
people of positive mentalities, — men who rad- 
iate victory, who express confidence in them- 
selves: who can get things done, who can put 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

big undertakings through, who have the tri- 
umphant attitude. 

Charles M. Schwab, an expert in estimating 
and measuring ability, says: "I have great 
faith in those who have great faith in them- 
selves. I know that the men who fear them- 
selves are not fit for responsibility." 

If you look as though you had lost your 
nerve, your faith in yourself, your self-confi- 
dence, no one is going to give you a respon- 
sible position. It is human to have faith in 
those who have faith in themselves. 

Regardless of whether you have yet won 
out or not, if you are a conqueror in your 
own mind, if you have a victorious manner, 
other people will believe in you. 

On the other hand, if you tag yourself with 
things bespeaking uncertainty, doubt or tim- 
idity, the law will work the other way. 

Thousands of seekers for positions go after 
them in a half-hearted, dejected, discouraged 
way. They are convinced at the beginning 
that they are not going to get the place. 

Scores of able young men and women 
among my students have asked me why it 
was they never got a raise in salary. In al- 
most every instance they admitted they made 
the request expecting to be refused. 

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PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
The psychology of it seems to be this: The 
world demands that you make somewhat of 
a success of your own individual personality 
before asking it to take you into partnership in 
its business. It sees that the timid, self-con- 
scious man is not succeeding with his own 
mental attitudes and automatically concludes 
that he is not a safe risk. 

The world makes way for the self-confident 
man. There is no use trying to stop him. No 
use opposing him. If you dam up his efforts 
in one direction he gathers force and breaks 
over in another. No enemy or enemies are 
great enough to forestall him. Only the weak 
can be beaten by their enemies. The self-con- 
fident man plows through everything and 
reaches his goal. 

The next step essential to success is: 
Think of yourself as two persons, the real 
you who has given the orders for doing this 
thing, and your other self which must carry 
them out. 

Let this second self see that you expect it 
to carry out these orders. Never rescind those 
orders as long as you wish to accomplish that 
particular thing. 

Let your other self see you are expecting 
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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 
it to deliver the goods. When it whines and 
wants to beg off don't listen. It is your 
weaker nature, your lazy self, — that negative 
part that acts as a drag to the ambitions. 

Right here let me tell you of something 
which has been most effective in my own life. 

I learned how this lazy other self was always 
trying to get out of work. I discovered it 
could think up the most plausible excuses for 
justifying me. I found that if I left any loop- 
holes open it always came around whispering 
how some other time would do. "Let's just 
take today off, — one more day of vacation 
won't do any harm and we'll make it up to- 



morrow." 



I found that this enemy Inertia was trap- 
ping me into neglecting the things I had set 
out to do, and after a few years I was dis- 
mayed to realize that I had allowed it to cheat 
me out of my greatest desires. So I devised 
a trap for it. Knowing that this weaker side 
of myself would continue to creep in when- 
ever I was off guard and beguile me away 
from the task which my better self had set, I 
forestalled its activities. 

Whenever I had fully decided to do some- 
thing worth while, and while my best self was 

299 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

still at the helm, I made whatever arrange- 
ments were necessary to compel me to accom- 
plish it. 

For instance, if I decided to write a book 
on a certain subject I announced that fact to 
my classes, giving the exact date when it 
would be available. 

When I decided to organize a new lecture, 
I compelled myself to do it by engaging the 
hall, paying a deposit, and advertising in the 
newspapers. The greatest undertaking of my 
life I literally forced myself to engage in. 

After years of study and preparation I still 
delayed, giving myself the excuse that I need- 
ed more time in which to make the final ar- 
rangements. 

At last I determined to inaugurate it on a 
certain date. Ordinarily I would have given 
myself about four years. As it was, I gave 
myself exactly six months to the day. 

Hundreds of times in those six months my 
weaker self rebelled, declared I could never 
do it, that I had set myself to do the impos- 
sible. 

Sometimes when the task threatened to 
overwhelm me I almost succumbed, but the 
size of the stake I had deliberately placed in 
the balance was so great I dared not. 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

I now know that the development, soul- 
growth and inspiration I gained from deliver- 
ing exactly what I had contracted, on the ex- 
act date, was worth more than anything the 
other three years of half-work could have 
given me. 

From that day to this my weaker self has 
never been able to re-establish herself in her 
old place of dominance. To be sure, she 
comes back. She comes back with the same 
excuses and sometimes they sound very se- 
ductive. But, as the farmer says in regard 
to breaking a horse: "Break his will once 
and he is yours." 

I still tie myself up with contracts, agree- 
ments, advertising and other inexorable task- 
masters. 

I still have my weaker self but it knows its 
place. 

You can teach yours to know its place. 
You can rise above it, conquer it and put it 
beneath your feet. 

Take for granted that you have the energy, 
courage, enthusiasm and self-confidence to do 
what you want to do. Place yourself in a po- 
sition where others expect you to do it, and 
when the time comes you will find yourself in 
possession of the qualities with which to do it. 

301 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Stop thinking poverty if you wish to attract 
prosperity. Refuse to give a place in your 
mind to the things you fear. 

The man who focuses his mind on ex- 
pectations of failure, poverty, who banishes 
ambitions, hope, and gives full sway to doubt, 
fear and timidity, inevitably brings these 
things to pass. No power on earth can make 
such a man succeed. No power on earth can 
always keep down the man who holds the 
opposite expectations of himself. 

Think the things you want; furthermore 
don't be afraid to want. There is a world of 
difference between wishing and wanting. The 
"wishers" usually fail while the "wanters" 
win. 

Thousands of lives are made small, pinched 
and narrow because people are afraid to de- 
sire, to fling out their longings, to visualize 
them. Instead of believing we can get the 
thing we desire we spend our time exaggerat- 
ing our restrictions and limitations. 

All men and women who have climbed to 
the top of life's ladder climbed up mentally 
first. 

Most failures are due to the fact that peo- 
ple are not willing to do their part toward 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

making their dreams come true. They wish 
"to have their cake and eat it too," to take 
things easy and have the good things of life 
drop into their laps by magic. 

Opportunities always come, doors are al- 
ways opening, the road is always made clear 
to the man or woman who trusts and works. 
They seldom open in just the way or at just 
the time he expects, but they open often to 
bigger things than he ever dreamed of. Noth- 
ing comes to the weak, doubting heart save 
the crumbs of existence. 

Someone has said, "The world is a whis- 
pering gallery which sends back the echo of 
your own voice." Someone else has said, "It 
is a mirror which reflects the face it sees in 
it." If we frown it frowns, if we laugh it 
laughs back. 

One of the saddest things is this fact, that 
most people measure themselves by their 
weaknesses instead of by their strength. They 
estimate themselves at their worst instead of 
their best. They seem to feel that the vision 
they see of themselves in self-confident, op- 
timistic, exalted moments is a figment of the 
imagination and not their real selves. 

Very few people realize how much self- 
confidence has to do with accomplishment. 

303 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
Most people do not realize that it is a creative 
force. It is not only a creative force but one 
of the greatest in man, — so great, in fact, that; 
man accomplishes in almost exact proportion 
to his self-confidence. 

Keep your eyes and ears open. Do not 
spend time and energy regretting the lack of 
a college education. A college education is a 
good thing but the greatest good it does is not 
the education it gives you, but the self-confi- 
dence it instills. The root of many a man's 
failure in business is found in his too great 
sensitiveness over the lack of a higher educa- 
tion. He keeps himself reminded that he has 
missed something. He imagines, as we all do 
when we miss anything, that it is much great- 
er than it really is. 

Meanwhile it is not the college man's "learn- 
ing" which gives him the advantage over you, 
as you suppose, but the consciousness on his 
part that he has spent four years at a seat of 
learning. 

If a hypnotist could put you to sleep for ten 
minutes, and while your mind was subservient 
to his, give you the conviction that you had 
been thru college, and give it to you with such 
force that you would always thereafter believe 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

it, you would not once in a thousand encoun- 
ters miss the education. The self-confident air 
which your belief had given you would cause 
everyone to assume you to be a college man 
and they would accept your opinions accord- 
ingly. 

If you are sensitive on this question of your 
lack of education, assume as near as possible 
the attitudes of an educated man. 

Never tell anyone of your educational de- 
ficiencies. Get knowledge. Educate your- 
self, but don't let the fact that you failed to 
spend four years on a campus "get your 
goat." 

Don't let the fact that you lack social stand- 
ing get it either. Instead of regretting that 
you are not the son of a "best" family of "blue 
bloods," start a best family of your own; a 
family of such good red blood that it will never 
need traditions to bolster it up. 

Take a positive attitude toward everything 
in your life. Think and act positively, never 
negatively. Instead of saying, "I can't afford 
this," and "We mustn't do that because we 
are going to need this money next year," 
spend all that is necessary, and say, "I will 
make more for next year." 

305 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Those who are constantly retrenching, who 
deny themselves here, pinch themselves there 
and skimp somewhere else, are always poor. 
They take the poverty attitude, the negative 
attitude toward life. Determine to make more 
money next year. Force yourself to make 
more. Save a certain percentage always but 
don't take it all out in saving. 

Another trouble with us is that we do not 
concentrate. We want things but we do not 
want them badly enough to keep working for 
them. Our thoughts are truants. They go off 
on vacations. They want to play, to frivol, to 
enjoy themselves. And we wind up where 
the enjoyer always winds up, — at the small 
end of things. 

We wish for riches, station, fame, but we 
refuse to pay for them. We do not want to 
earn them. We want them to fall into our 
laps. 

I know many young women, and middle- 
age ones, too, who say, "How I long to have 
plenty of money, a beautiful home; I adore 
lovely things, exquisite possessions, handsome 
cars and elegant clothes. Why can't I have 
them?" 

The answer is simple. They can't have 

them because they do not earn them. Only 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

one such woman in millions has them fall into 
her lap via marriage. The rest must earn 
them. 

Thousands of American women are earning 
them. Female brains are making fortunes to- 
day and more will make them in the future. 

If you really want money, and want it badly 
enough, that desire will kindle the fire neces- 
sary to burn your way to it. Don't waste 
your time longing to lure a money-making 
/ male into marriage. It costs too much. It 
usually costs more than it is worth. Almost 
any rich wife will tell you so, especially if she 
married him after the riches were made. \ 

People fail to get what they desire because 
they do not desire it hard enough. The man 
or woman of strong desire draws everything 
toward him that he wants because a strong de- 
sire compels action and action is what gets 
everything. The man of strong desire draws 
not only things but people to him. People 
instnctively fall in with his suggestions. They 
feel drawn rather than pushed toward him, 
for such is the power of desire. Nothing can 
withstand it. 

Keep the fire of your desire burning bright 
and fierce or it will not awaken you to action. 

307 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Allow yourself to want things with all your 
might and they will in turn cause you to do 
the things that bring them to you. 

We have heard much about the "mag- 
netic" individual; the kind of man who has 
the power to attract people to him. These 
men invariably possess great will power; they 
are the active, energetic, forceful men. All 
great minds possess this kind of energy to a 
marked degree. 

There are those who have been able to work 
their will upon the mass of people. These 
men are seen to possess a strange power, but 
very few understand it. It forces and com- 
pels; nothing can stand in its way. No one 
ever did anything or got anything who was 
not filled with a strong, hungry desire. 

The man who feels and hungers for achieve- 
ment will make mighty efforts to satisfy that 
hunger. Around you every day you see peo- 
ple who go to lengths to satisfy the hunger 
for food. The great men of the world have 
felt the same way in their hunger for achieve- 
ment. All "feelings" that incite one to action 
of any kind are forms of desire. Without 
desire the world would cease absolutely from 
action. 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 
Preceding every action is desire, either con- 
scious or unconscious. Those who make a 
virtue of renouncing desire, who claim to have 
"conquered desire absolutely," are acting in 
response to desire of a more subtle form. 
They are expressing a desire not to do other 
things. 

All renunciation is the result of desire, just 
as its opposite is the result of desire. This is 
a fundamental natural law. "Lack of desire" 
to do a certain thing is another way of ex- 
pressing a desire to pursue an opposite course 
of action. And so it goes. Desire is at the 
root of every action and every refraining from 
action. Nothing has ever been done, created 
or manifested without desire. 

A keen, ardent desire will cut away the un- 
dergrowth from the path of success. It will 
attract you to the things and the people neces- 
sary for its gratification. It will bring you 
directly or indirectly to the circumstances, 
conditions and environments necessary to your 
success. It will seldom bring you by the exact 
route you anticipated, but the destination is 
the important thing. 

The man of will power is wanted every- 
where. The world is crying for him. 

309 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
One of America's most famous financiers 
said recently, "I have ten twenty-five thou- 
sand-dollar-a-year jobs for men of will power." 

When asked what he meant by a man of 
will power he said, "I mean a man filled with 
the force of action; a man who is determined; 
who keeps his mind on an object just as a ma- 
chinist keeps his chisel on the metal, makes it 
bite in deeper and deeper until the desired 
impression is made." 

Cultivate fixity of purpose. To hit a target 
you must see it. To arrive at any point you 
must keep your eye on it and go straight to- 
ward it. Fix your will upon what you want; 
hold it there, and move toward it in as straight 
a line as possible. Turn the spotlight of con- 
centration on it and every faculty will gravi- 
tate toward its accomplishment just as the 
eyes of an audience follow a spotlight on the 
stage. The people or objects outside the rim 
of the spotlight are not seen. You can de- 
velop concentration to the point where inimi- 
cal or opposing matters will not be felt. The 
spotlight of concentration illumines your aim, 
magnifies it, brings it out with such distinct- 
ness that other things do not tempt you. 

To accomplish anything, "Cut off both ends 
310 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

and set it afire in the middle," is the way one 
author puts it. The sun shining on a news- 
paper is sufficiently diffused — spread out — 
that nothing happens, but concentrate that 
sunshine down to the area of a pin point and 
it will burn a hole thru it. 

To get anything in this world you have got 
to burn holes through the things that inter- 
vene. You must center not only your body 
but your mind on the thing. 

All outward activities dissipate your ener- 
gies. Stop losing power in the thinking of 
wasteful thoughts. You cannot stop the 
ceaseless activities of the mind but you can 
direct them into the channels that are worth 
while. 

Stop yourself sometime when you are hur- 
rying in a crowded day's work. Note what 
an inner whirlwind of excitement is going on 
inside your mind. 

Walter Dill Scott of Northwestern Univer- 
sity said, "In studying the lives of contem- 
porary business men two facts stand out pre- 
eminently. The first is that they have accom- 
plished what to most of us seemed impossible. 
Such men appear as giants in comparison with 
whom ordinary men sink to the size of pig- 
mies. The second fact is that they never seem 

311 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

rushed for time. The secret of it seems to be 
that they require less time because their con- 
centration accomplishes in one hour what or- 
dinary men take three hours to do." 

That there is an enormous lack of proper 
application of energy in the lives of most men 
is an undoubted fact. What you need is not 
more power to do but more sensible applica- 
tion of the powers you are wasting. You 
often hear a big business man spoken of as "a 
human dynamo." We are impressed by his 
power, by his ability to turn out a stupendous 
amount of work in a short time. We exclaim 
at his capacity for carrying in his mind the de- 
tails of so many projects and wonder how he 
can accomplish so much in so many direc- 
tions; how he can pull the strings of so many 
enterprises without ever getting lost in the 
maze of details. One thing we know is that 
he never seems hurried. 

If you will look you will find the explana- 
tion. Nearly every word and act of this man 
is straight to the point. It is said that "a cool 
brain is the reserve of a hot box." The busi- 
ness of the day is carried along in a steady 
drive. This is invariably the mark of the big 
man. The man who chatters, clatters and flut- 
ters usually imagines he is getting over a lot of 

312 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY 

track, but he wastes far more steam than is 
necessary in doing it. 

By keeping your physical and mental ener- 
gies riveted on what you want to do there can 
be no insurmountable obstacles. You may 
not be able to do it just the way you planned, 
but new conceptions, new ways and methods 
will come to you just as surely as you keep 
your desire and concentration. By concentra- 
tion I do not merely mean the keeping of your 
surface mind on your ideal. I mean building 
it so deeply in your subconscious that if I 
awakened you from the soundest sleep in the 
middle of the night you could tell me before 
you were entirely awake what that aim was. 

Ask any successful man if his success came 
about in the manner in which he expected 
and he will say, "No. Many of the specific 
plans I laid were frustrated, but my determina- 
tion brought from somewhere other plans that 
served my purpose as well or even better than 
those I had originally conceived." 

When the will is focused with burning in- 
tensity on the accomplishment of any one 
thing, ways and means can always be found 
for accomplishing it. The brain that is kept 
at work on one aim develops unsuspected 
powers. 

313 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 
The reason for this is purely scientific. In 
every brain there are millions of unused brain 
cells — the "reserves." The average person, 
because he never places himself in jeopardy, 
never has the use of these reserves, but the 
man who calls upon his brain for them not 
only finds them responding to his needs, but 
develops new ones. 

Brain building is the development or growth 
of the brain cells in any special region of the 
brain. As you know, the brain is divided into 
sections or areas, each one being the seat of 
some particular faculty. These areas are the 
same in all human beings, as was discovered 
by Dr. Gall, a brain anatomist of France, 125 
years ago. It has long been recognized that 
these brain centers could be developed. In 
some instances specialists, whose work de- 
manded great concentration, developed that 
particular brain area to such an extent that 
slight changes in the outward shape and size 
of their skulls was apparent. The bony struc- 
ture of the skull accommodates itself very 
gradually and in ordinary cases the change is 
not noticeable.* 



* Note: For further study of the subject of brain areas, 
see "Brain and Personality/' by Thompson. 

314 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY 
It has been demonstrated many times that 
a man may literally make himself over men- 
tally. All that is necessary is that he devote 
the same degree of attention, patience and 
work to the subject that he would if he were 
attempting to develop some physical muscle 
in arm or hand, for instance. 

The processes for developing mental and 
physical muscle are almost identical, — exer- 
cise, practice, persistence. 

You can increase any brain area, therefore 
any ability, faculty or talent. 

Earnest desire, intensified by visualization, 
stimulates the brain centers, sends the blood 
to that area and automatically causes the cre- 
ation of new cells. 

Concentration is attention in an intensified 
form. As long as other subjects are allowed 
to enter your consciousness they will weaken 
concentration until it becomes merely interest. 
Only by inhibiting all outside interests can 
you attain the concentration which is effective. 

It is difficult for one to concentrate his at- 
tention for any great length of time on any 
one thing. The secret of concentration is to 
keep pulling it back. Whenever it wanders 
return to the ideal of the financial success, the 

315 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

professional achievement, the ruling passion, 
and let it get control of your attention again. 
The mere general longing for success is not 
enough. Nothing indefinite will ever get you 
anywhere. You must have definite interests 
clearly defined. The mind must be given 
something specific, important and tangible to 
work on. 

New details will be needed constantly. But 
if you really want this thing, your desire will 
furnish those details. 

Concentration has been the secret back of 
every invention. If Thomas A. Edison had 
given his attention to the thousand little odds 
and ends that the rest of us do, how far do 
you think he would have climbed? How far 
do you think any other big man would have 
climbed? How far do you think you are go- 
ing to climb, if, instead of conducting a spe- 
cialty shop, you run a mental five-and-ten- 
cent store? 

Do not allow yourself to waste time, 
strength or energy reading things that cannot 
serve your purpose. Do not make engage- 
ments that will dissipate your powers. Be 
jealous of your time. 

Franklin said, "Dost thou love life? Then 
do not squander time for that is the stuff life 

316 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY 
is made of." Give money to the needy; be 
generous with your worldly goods, but give 
no man your time. 

Over the desk of a prominent executive in 
New York City is this statement, "Be brief. 
The man who steals my time is the most dan- 
gerous thief." 

Conserve your energy for the accomplish- 
ment of your great aim in life. Do not be- 
come narrow, selfish or self-centered but let 
everyone know that you are on the road to 
some place in particular and that you do not 
intend to loiter along the way. Anyone worth 
while will respect you all the more, for every- 
one worth while is doing the same himself. 

There is only one sure way to get away 
from poverty and that is to turn your back on 
it. Begin this minute by putting the poverty 
thought out of your mind. Get the poverty 
expression out of your eyes, the poverty tones 
out of your voice, the poverty limpness out of 
your handshake. 

Mentally, physically, and spiritually erase, 
as far as you can, marks of poverty. Erase 
the marks of poverty from your clothing, your 
surroundings, your bearing, your environment 
as a whole. 

317 



H 



PRACTICAL PSYCHOLOGY 

Don't give up. All solids and metals have 
what is called a melting pot. At a certain 
temperature they tend to liquify. The test of 
you is your melting point, the place where 
you are ready to quit, to lie down, to give up. 

Nearly every rich man will tell you that 
every big triumph was preceded by places of 
dark discouragement which, had he heeded 
them, would have marked his end. The dif- 
ference between the poor man and the rich 
man is usually just that. One gives up when 
things look dark. The other shuts his eyes, 
grits his teeth, clenches his fists and hangs on. 



THE END 



318 



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